“No, but I have heard something which has startled me,” Grace answered. “How brave do you feel at this moment, Bertha?”
“I don’t know; I don’t think that I am ever brave,” said Bertha slowly; then, suddenly remembering what Eunice had said about her being able to do anything that was required of her, she said, “But I expect that I can muster up as much courage as you require me to have.”
“Good girl! Always be ready to meet the demands upon you, and then you will do,” replied Grace, with a laugh which was unsteady in spite of herself.
“But what is it?” asked Bertha. “What am I required to do that is likely to make me quail, in spite of myself?”
“Tom has had a good offer, a very good offer indeed, of six months’ employment, but it will take him right away from home, and he cannot go unless you are willing to take care of me and the children,” said Grace, and her eyes were very anxious as she waited for the other’s reply.
“Six months? Why, that is nearly all the winter!” cried Bertha, in dismay, for however solitary Duck Flats might appear in summer, it was as nothing to what it was in winter, when sometimes for a week at the stretch they saw no one at all but themselves.
“Yes, dear, but it is eighty dollars a month and all found. Think what it will mean to us this year! Why, it is like a plain interposition of Providence on our behalf, only it depends upon you whether we can get it,” said Grace, in a wistful tone.
Bertha gasped, and for one moment she seemed to be back in Mestlebury, and it was old Jan Saunders who was telling her that on her depended the safety of the man whose boat had been caught on the Shark’s Teeth. Why, oh why did people always thrust such hard things upon her?
Then suddenly she remembered that however hard the things had been she had always managed to do them, although at the first they had seemed quite impossible.
There was quite a big silence, which Grace did not dare to break, and then Bertha said slowly: “I suppose that I shall be able to do all right; anyhow, I will do my best, and, as you say, it is a most wonderful chance, and the money will make all the difference. Why, it will keep us round to next harvest, won’t it?”