“Likely,” sneered Miss Crevey. She turned her back elaborately and began to rearrange the articles on her untidy shelves.
Jacqueline clutched at the edge of the counter. She really felt as if she were going to fall.
“You didn’t—mean that?” she implored.
Miss Crevey wheeled about and faced her.
“Mean it?” she cried. “Why shouldn’t I mean it? What good are them beads doing me now? You bring me back that good cup I let ye take, or you let me sell them beads for what’s offered me, or you bring me the five dollars, like you promised me. I don’t care which ye do, but you got to do one or t’other and do it quick.”
There were footfalls on the worn step outside the screen door, and the sound of women’s chattering voices. No time to talk further, and no use in talking!
“You make up your mind before to-morrow night,” bade Miss Crevey in a fierce whisper, “and don’t ye go bawling and crying in here!”
Fiercely Jacqueline blinked back the tears that had gathered in her eyes. Proudly she turned her back on Miss Crevey, and walked past the chattering customers, out into the street.
What was she going to do, she asked herself over and over again, as she headed blindly homeward? Take away Grandma’s cup? Ten thousand times, no! Let Caroline’s beads be sold? Why, that was to make herself a thief! Caroline’s precious beads that she had kept hidden away with her mother’s picture—Caroline’s mother’s beads—to let them be sold would be almost as dreadful as to take Grandma’s cup! And the only way to save the cup and the beads from the ogreish Miss Crevey was to find five dollars, somewhere, somehow before to-morrow night.
There was no time to write to Judge Blair for the money, even if Jacqueline had been willing at last, in her desperate need, to betray the secret that was one-half Caroline’s. There was no hope of reaching Caroline. Jacqueline could go to Aunt Martha, but Aunt Martha hadn’t any five dollars to spend even for cups, and Aunt Martha, with all her cares and troubles, mustn’t be worried. Only in the last extremity could she turn to Aunt Martha. Only to-morrow night, when every hope was surely gone.