"Land sakes, who can it be from?" she exclaimed, scrutinizing the envelope quite long enough to have read the letter through.
"I'd like to awful well," at last she soliloquized, "but don't 'spose it'd be safe to leave grandpa and Rosa here alone. No tellin' what they'd be up to. There ain't many that'd be as self-sacrificin' as I am, and keep an old man that ain't got a drop of your own blood, then take in as good as a street waif, too. If it wuzn't fer them, I'd do it, I jest would!"
Rosa's curiosity was aroused, but experience had taught her the futility of asking questions.
"Rosa," commanded the speaker, "bring me that tin can up there on the shelf.
"I guess I could manage the streetcar fare," she announced a few minutes later, counting over several times Rosa's earnings in pennies, nickels and dimes.
"My old neighbor over on the south side wants me to come tomorrow and stay till Monday. Bein' that I've had it so awful hard, I jest guess I'll do it, and you can git along the best way you can. Let me see: I'll go tomorrow afternoon, and be gone all day Saturday and Sunday and till late Monday afternoon. I'll leave you fifteen cents apiece to live on, and I guess you won't starve."
Instinctively grandpa and Rosa cast a glance at each other. At last their opportunity had come, and a better one by far than for which they had dared to hope!
The time intervening between the reception of the letter and her departure, Mrs. Gray spent mostly in giving directions to her two charges, as she delighted to call them.
After having gone down the first flight of stairs, she called back:
"Rosa, I'll lick you sure if you git another speck of grease on that there floor, while I'm gone."