"Read that," she said; and Daphne read a badly spelled, badly written scrawl, in the writing of an old woman unused to holding a pen:
DEAR DRUSILLA:
I wish you'd come and see us. Mis Abbott has took poison that she got out of the medcin closet, cause she's lost her money and can't pay her board no more and she says she'd ruther die than be charity, cause she's always looked down on charity, and bin so stuck up about her family. They got it out of her with a stumak pump and she won't die this time but she says she'll do it again cause she can't live and be charity. Won't you come and see her and perhaps you can do something with her, we can't.
BARBARA.
Daphne handed the note back to Drusilla, who put it carefully into her bag before she spoke.
"Now, do you see what real trouble is? Do you remember me tellin' you about Mis' Abbott, whose father was a general and whose husband was some sort of official down South? Well, they're all dead and her only daughter died when she was a little girl and she hadn't nothin' left but memories and just enough money to keep her in the home. It was in some railroad stock and now I guess it's gone too. She was awful proud, and I can see how she feels. She always looked down on me 'cause I was charity, but I don't hold it agin her. She's had her arms full of sorrow and now they're too old to carry more."
"Poor woman!" said Daphne softly. "What are you going to do?"
"I ain't got it all figgered out yet. I talked it over with John till late last night, and then afterward it come to me. I guess I can do somethin'. The main thing is to make her want to live, make her think some one wants her. You know, Daphne, that's the great sorrow of the old; to feel that they ain't needed no more; that every one can git along just as well if not a little better without 'em than with 'em. When they see that, they want to die."
"Oh, I'm sorry I said anything about my troubles—they are so little! Yet they seemed so big last night—and this morning—this morning—"
"Well, what happened this mornin'? Tell me, dear; it'll make you feel better and then you'll see they ain't so very bad after all."