Mrs. Laurence took the paper in her hand, looked at the indorsement, looked at Mrs. Carter. The color flushed into her face; tears, that imprisonment and wrong had failed to wring from her, came, drop by drop, into her hard eyes.
“Why, why this is the mortgage!” she said. “The old mortgage, that was eating up everything!”
“Exactly. Put it in the stove, and never think of it again. It is mine, and I give it to you for a nice little bonfire. Eva, dear, come and kiss me. Ruthie, why what are you crying for, child?”
Down by the invalid’s couch Mrs. Carter sank upon her knees, folded her arms around the startled girl, and began to sob like a great warm-hearted baby, as she was—God bless her!
After a little she lifted her face, all wet and smiling, like a full-blown rose, with rain trembling on it, and got up, ashamed of her own goodness, and the emotion that sprung out of it.
“You see I always was such a goose—crying when I ought to laugh, and hard as a rock when I ought to cry. Don’t let anybody know that you ever saw me like this. But I tell you, girls, it isn’t every day that one can get so much joy out of a trumpery bracelet, and save half the price too. You have no idea how much money that old paper has saved for Carter. I’ll be bound he’s chuckling over it yet.”
CHAPTER LXIV.
THE ADOPTION.
Eva, whose face had changed from red to white, with a swift transition of feeling, came forward suddenly, and threw her arms around Mrs. Carter’s neck.
“Oh, how good you are! How I love you! Can we do anything—anything on earth to repay all this?” she cried, in a warm outburst of gratitude. “It seems to me that I could fall down and worship you!”
“There! there! That’s all nonsense, my dear. Just remember that there is only one thing you can do, and having once refused, I can never ask you again after this, not wanting to buy love.”