Angel did not glance at the canvas on the easel; instead, she drew a stool to her father's side, and, sitting down, replied gravely—
"I am come to tell you about the milkman, father!"
"The milkman!" he repeated wonderingly. "What about him, my dear?"
"He says he will not let us have any more milk without we pay our bill! Have you any money, father? Can you pay him, do you think?"
"Pay him? Of course I can—at least, I suppose so! Is the man afraid I am going to cheat him? I had forgotten we were in his debt. Dear one, child, how like your mother you are growing! Well, well I am glad of that! But you must not get into the habit of worrying, for I cannot bear to see you looking anxious. Why should you trouble? We shall have plenty of money one of these days, if all's well."
"I know, I know!" Angel cried, lifting her grey eyes to her father's handsome face and smiling, for she implicitly believed what he said; "but what are we to do about the milkman's bill, dear father?"
He laughed at her persistency; and rising, went to a desk on a side table, and turned out the contents of a private drawer.
"There's not so much money here as I thought," he acknowledged ruefully, "but still, more than enough to pay the importunate milkman, I dare say. You can tell Mrs. Steer to let me have the account—I suppose I must have had it before, but I've not the least idea where I put it—and I'll settle it, at once. How pleased you look, child!"
She was very pleased, as her glowing face showed plainly. The household bills weighed upon her now as they had weighed upon her mother in the years gone by. Poor Mrs. Willis had been a "veritable Martha," as her husband had sometimes called her; he had never understood, though he had loved her dearly, why she had allowed herself to be troubled about many things.
Angel flew downstairs in search of Mrs. Steer, whom she met bearing a laden tray to one of her lodgers' rooms.