'Yes, I've done. My Cherry, my Cherry! you don't know how much lighter the world seems to me than it did half an hour ago!'
'O you foolish old Giant! And there come those irrepressible children! Oh! I hope and trust they have not found it out!' cried Cherry, bounding up from her sentimental attitude, as Angela was heard galloping up the stairs.
But there was this benefit in dealing with a veteran, that he knew how to keep his own counsel and other people's. Angela came dashing in. 'Oh! here you both are! Mr. Grinstead said he had forgotten, after all, to give you this letter. He said you had better write to the lady herself. It is a capital order, he said—you've been settling about it, haven't you? What are you going to do?'
'I don't quite know, Angel,' said Cherry, seeing the letter was addressed in a strange hand to the sculptor; and thereupon venturing to open it, and finding it contained a request to obtain from Miss Underwood an engagement for a set of studies similar to those in the exhibition, if it were true that these were not for sale. It was from a lady of wealth and taste, whose name was well known as a patroness in the artist world; and Cherry could quite understand that Mr. Grinstead had kept it back, with the feeling that were she his, no toil should be hers for the future.
That was little recommendation. Her first rise out of uselessness gave her more exultation in its novelty than did even the exercise of her art or the evidence of its success. There was something exquisite in the sense of power. She had made up her mind to give Wilmet quarterly the same amount as was charged for Lance, to set aside just enough besides to clothe herself, and that the remainder of her earnings should liquidate Edgar's debts; so that some day she should write to him to come home a free and unburthened man. Viewed in this aspect, that huge carpet-bag, stuffed to bursting with bills, had not so frightful an aspect, but rather seemed to her a dragon to be conquered for Edgar's sake; and Felix laughed at her for tendering him the cheque for her Acolyte, and asking him just to pay off a few of them before leaving town. He had to explain to her that equity and custom required that no one should have the preference, and that she must wait till she could either pay off the whole, or else make payments of so much in the pound.
'Like a bankruptcy! That can't be worth while. Those are your business ways!'
'I fear you little know what you have undertaken. Remember, there is no call to pay any of it.'
'Indeed! Oh! why does not that tiresome Ferdinand write?'
'There has not been time.'
'He could have telegraphed!'