Young Colesworth would come out on Saturdays and return Monday mornings. He would arrange with Lucas to drive him back and forth. And the old gentleman would come out, bag and baggage, on the coming Monday to take possession of the room.
To bind the bargain Harris handed Lyddy fifteen dollars, and asked for a receipt. Fifteen dollars a week! Lyddy had scarcely dared ask for it–had done so with fear and trembling, in fact. But the Colesworths seemed to consider it quite within reason.
“Oh, ’Phemie!” gasped Lyddy, hugging her sister tight out in the kitchen. “Just think of fifteen dollars coming in every week. Why! we can all live on that!”
“M–m; yes,” said ’Phemie, ruminatively. “But hasn’t he a handsome nose?”
“Who–what— ’Phemie Bray! haven’t you anything else in your head but young men’s noses?” cried her sister, in sudden wrath.
But it was a beginning. They had really “got into business,” as their father said that night at the supper table.
“I only fear that the work will be too much for us,” he observed.
“For ’Phemie and me, you mean, Father,” said Lyddy, firmly. “You are not to work. You’re to get well. That is your business–and your only business.”
“You girls will baby me to death!” cried Mr. Bray, wiping his eyes. “I refuse to be laid on the shelf. I hope I am not useless—”
“My goodness me! Far from it,” cried ’Phemie. “But you’ll be lots more help to us when you are perfectly well and strong again.”