“I understand,” he interrupted. “I know, it’s hard not to be able to tell her what she longs to hear. Ah, Henrietta,” and he shook his head sadly, “there isn’t a man on the face of this earth that is worthy of such a wealth of love! But how are the mother and sister? And how is the mortgage getting on?”
He was standing in front of her, and, although she was not a tall woman, their eyes were on a level. His deeply lined, thin face was so pale, that, with its white mustache, heavy, gray-white eyebrows and crown of silver-white hair, it was like an artist’s study of white against white.
As Henrietta looked into it a sudden vision came to her of the long procession of men and women who had passed through that office, stricken and fearful, their desperate eyes pleading with that one pale face for help, and a lump came in her throat. She coughed before she could speak.
“We begin to think mother is getting better,” she said, “now that she is feeling so much at ease about money matters. And the mortgage is slowly dwindling. If I have no bad luck I expect to clear it all off by the end of the summer.”
“Good! You are a splendid, plucky girl, my dear, and I’m as proud of you as your father would have been!”