“Why should I have distressed you, dear one?”
“Oh, I could have worked, Cleve. But I didn’t know! I didn’t know! I thought you were rich. And I thought, sometimes, that you were too prudent, too saving, especially when you did not get a dress coat to go to Ran’s wedding. And all the time you were poor, and struggling on the very brink of ruin! Oh, Cleve!”
“Never mind, dear heart, we are ready for the landlord, or for any other demand. Tell me, darling, shall you like to go to this mountain farmhouse in West Virginia, and keep house for the old man, and be mistress, doctress, teacher and everything, to his horde of darkies?”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes—a thousand times, yes! I shall be delighted, Cleve!”
“Very well, then. As it all depended upon you, I will answer the old man’s letter and accept his offer; then go out and change this check.”
“No, no; first of all, dear Cleve,” said Palma, gravely, “let us kneel and return thanks to our Heavenly Father that we are saved.”
CHAPTER XIII
SAFE AT HOME
We left Jennie Montgomery sleeping in her mother’s arms, with her babe safe beside them.
Jennie would have talked all night till broad daylight; but her mother, knowing how tired the young traveler must be, discouraged all conversation by pretending to be sleepy, by replying only in monosyllables, or even answering at random, until at length the talker herself gave up in despair, grew tired, then stupid, and then fell fast asleep.
The consequence of her exhausted strength and her long vigil was that she slept long and deeply and late into the next morning.