“I wonder if she will make you happy?”
“Of course she will. And now, what is your plan?”
“You can leave your pearls with me in pawn, and I will pay you thirty pounds a year on them, till you return home, and claim them.”
For a long time Letty combated this suggestion: in fact, all through the valse ‘Mes Rêves,’ played so seductively by the band.
But Mrs. Hesketh, a practical woman, was determined that her foolish friend should not fare forth into the cold world, quite penniless, with the exception of her hoarded two hundred pounds.
“And another thing, I must say, Letty, and that is about the nurse. Have you thought of the frightful trouble she will get into; and her state of mind when she returns and finds that you have stolen her charge?”
“Yes: I am leaving a present, and a letter to clear her entirely. I fancy she will be surprised when she discovers that, of all people, I am Cara’s mother!”
“She won’t make friends again in a hurry, with pretty strange ladies! You are a child in the ways of the world; you have never in all your life had to depend upon yourself, you don’t know the value of money,—or how far it goes. As to earning it, I’m afraid you will not have much chance of that in Switzerland, among an untiring, and industrious people. Seventy pounds a year, will at least keep you from starvation: for Switzerland is a cheap country to live in—once you leave the radius of the big hotels—so you will give me your address, and four times a year I will send you seventeen pounds. And perhaps, if my health permits, I will go out, and settle myself down somewhere near you, for a little while.”
“That will be good of you. Oh, if you only would!”
“If it were suspected, that I was here with you, abetting and aiding your criminal act, and arranging for your departure, I should get into a nice scrape, but you know, my dear, I have always liked you, and I’m sorry you have made such an awful hash of your life.”