A fortnight after the wedding the Dale girls were devouring with eager eyes one morning a very small note and a very large check which they could scarcely read, so great was their excitement.
“Oh, what a relief!” cried Julie, “to know that everything pleased Mrs. Truxton, and how good she was to write such a kind appreciative note to people like us whom she scarcely knows! Let’s go and read it to Bridget.”
Bridget, when she heard it, was reduced to tears and presently they were all laughing and crying together, for the work of this first big order had been more of an anxiety than any one of them cared to acknowledge, while its success expressed so kindly by their thoughtful customer meant as much in its way as the accompanying check, which fairly dazzled them.
“One hundred and twenty-five dollars!” cried Hester ecstatically. “We’re millionaires! Oh— oh—oh! to think of our earning so much money!” She waved the check wildly over her head and even insisted that Peter Snooks should have a sniff at it before she said, “Wouldn’t you just like to frame it and keep it forever?”
“I know what I should like best of all to do with it,” said Julie.
“I bet Miss Hester can guess by the knowin’ look in her eyes,” said Bridget. “It’s meself that knows too, what your blessed selves is thinkin’.”
“Of course you both know,” Julie said quietly, “we want to begin to pay Dr. Ware rent.”
They went the next afternoon to his office. On the doorsteps they encountered Miss Ware, who turned about as she saw them approach.
“Don’t let us detain you,” said Julie politely, “we have just come for a little business talk with your brother.”
“Ah!” she replied, “I fancied you got about all of that sort of thing you wanted at home. You’d better come upstairs and let me make you some tea—you look peaked, both of you. Philip ought to give you a tonic. Tell him I said so, and come up afterward. I insist upon it and shall have the tea ready. It will not do you any harm to sit down in a different atmosphere for a while. I suppose you do get sick to death of a kitchen.”