“He died yesterday afternoon at three o’clock,” said Mrs. Ives. “He didn’t suffer; all that seemed to trouble him was that he couldn’t see you.”
Trying to comfort his mother, who seemed now wholly to give way, David controlled his own emotion. Presently she took him upstairs to the room in which she had been sitting all the morning—the room into which only slits of light came from behind the drawn shades; and there David stood and looked upon his father’s face.
A week after the funeral David, returning the money that had been lent him, wrote to Dr. Davenport that it would be impossible for him to return to St. Timothy’s School. His mother’s resources were extremely slender; indeed, David found that the income on which the family must depend would be barely sufficient to sustain them if they practiced the most rigid economy. Maggie must go, the house must be sold or let, and they must move into narrower and less expensive quarters.
Maggie, however, refused to accept dismissal.
“I’ve been with you altogether too long to be deserting you in your trouble,” she said to Mrs. Ives.
“But, Maggie, we can’t afford—”
“Sure, and I shouldn’t think you could, the way the doctor was that easy-going! But I’ve been thrifty—”
It was no use to argue with Maggie, and after some further ineffectual remonstrance Mrs. Ives succumbed.