The notion was by no means so agreeable to Theresa; but at the thought of going home the terror of her stepfather came over her again. She dared not face him without the rent; the remembrance of her last beating was too fresh in her mind.
"I think I'd better drown myself and have done with it!" she exclaimed, relapsing into her former state of despair.
"What in the world should you drown yourself for?" asked Winnie. "You have nothing to do except to stay here; then we'll come up with the rent, and we'll all go home to your house together; the night goes quite quickly when you're asleep."
Winnie's words made the affair seem certainly much simpler. Theresa felt ashamed of her ingratitude.
"I'm sure I ask yer pardon. It's much too good ye are to me," she replied warmly. Then with a sudden doubt, "Ye're sure ye'll bring it up in the morning?"
"Oh, yes!" cried Bobbo and Winnie together. "We'll come up the very first thing after we've got it," said Murtagh. "You know he won't actually give us two sovereigns, but he'll say you needn't pay your rent; that's just the same thing."
"But," suggested Rosie, who understood better what Theresa meant, "supposing he won't let them off paying."
"Oh, of course he'll let them off!" returned the others, confidently.
"Why," said Winnie, "just think, what's two sovereigns in all the hundreds of pounds he has paid to him!"
"Why," added Murtagh, "he has more hundreds of pounds every year than we have halfpennies, all five of us put together."