"He says he can't."
"What can he do?"
"He writes well, and he had a clerkship, but Mart was—unsteady, and he lost it. Then he got a place in the freight-yards, but there was a strike, and he went out. They wouldn't take him back then because he was so foolish in his talk; and they can't take him now, for hundreds of better men, steadier men, old employees, have been laid off. Ever since the World's Fair business has been falling away."
"And you have had not only that house and your mother to care for, but an able-bodied brother?"
Jenny dropped her head. Able-bodied brother, indeed!—with wife, babies, debts, duns, and all! She had borne the weight of the whole establishment upon her fragile shoulders; but that wasn't a thing to speak of to him,—to anybody. Her silence touched him.
"Do you mean that out of your little salary you have paid that house-rent and all the expenses and your mother's and his too?"
No answer.
"I wish you would tell me," he said, in such grave, courteous tones that they went to her heart. "I beg you not to think me intrusive. I have never heard of such a case before. Why, Miss Wallen, I'm appalled when I see how thoughtless I have been. You simply cannot afford the time to work for me at the price you fixed."
"It pays better than mending Mart's clothes, etc., at home," said she, whimsically; "very much better than anything I can get to do up town."
"Good heavens! cannot your mother mend Mart's clothes? Can't he mend them himself? My—my—poor little friend, I had no idea matters were as bad as this!"