This was sooner said than done, for she found that she had a great number of bills to write, and the slate on which she had entered the account was not immediately to be found; and when it was found the figures were almost rubbed out. Barbara had sat down upon it. Susan pored over the number of loaves, and the names of the persons who took them; and she wrote and cast up sums, and corrected and re-corrected them, till her head grew quite puzzled. The table was covered with little square bits of paper, on which she had been writing bills over and over again, when her father came in with a bill in his hand. “How’s this, Susan?” said he. “How can ye be so careless, child? What is your head running upon? Here, look at the bill you were sending up to the Abbey? I met the messenger, and luckily asked to see how much it was. Look at it.” Susan looked and blushed; it was written, “Sir Arthur Somers, to John Price, debtor, six dozen _lambs_, so much.” She altered it, and returned it to her father; but he had taken up some of the papers which lay upon the table. “What are all these, child?” “Some of them are wrong, and I’ve written them out again,” said Susan. “Some of them! All of them, I think, seem to be wrong, if I can read,” said her father, rather angrily, and he pointed out to her sundry strange mistakes. Her head, indeed, had been running upon her poor lamb. She corrected all the mistakes with so much patience, and bore to be blamed with so much good humour, that her father at last said, that it was impossible ever to scold Susan, without being in the wrong at the last. As soon as all was set right, Price took the bills, and said he would go round to the neighbours, and collect the money himself; for that he should be very proud to have it to say to them, that it was all earned by his own little daughter. Susan resolved to keep the pleasure of telling him of his week’s reprieve till he should come home to sup, as he had promised to do, in her mother’s room. She was not sorry to hear him sigh as he passed the knapsack, which she had been packing up for his journey. “How delighted he will be when he hears the good news!” said she, to herself; “but I know he will be a little sorry too for my poor lamb.” As Susan had now settled all her business, she thought she could have time to go down to the meadow by the river side to see her favourite; but just as she had tied on her straw hat the village clock struck four, and this was the hour at which she always went to fetch her little brothers home from a dame-school near the village. She knew that they would be disappointed, if she was later than usual, and she did not like to keep them waiting, because they were very patient, good boys; so she put off the visit to her lamb, and went immediately for her brothers. CHAPTER II.