“Well, we danced in the big hall most of the evening, while the older people played cards, and we did have a jolly time, and there was a stranger here—he was staying with the Blakes and you’d never guess where he’s from—Radnor! He’s very fascinating, but he’s old—he must be at least thirty! I know that wouldn’t seem old to you, but it does to me, and I felt very shy with him at first until I found out he came from Radnor, and then I just pelted him with questions about you, and he didn’t know you at all! I could have wept! But I talked on about you just the same, and I was dying to tell him about your work, for I think it’s so noble of you, but mummie has forbidden my mentioning it to any one, and, of course, I wouldn’t disobey her. He got the ring in my birthday cake, girls; wasn’t that the funniest thing? Lillie Blake teased him to give it to her, but he wouldn’t, and slipped it in his pocket out of sight. I know he enjoyed hearing me talk about you, because he stayed with me a good part of the evening, and Teddie Carroll got cross and sulked in the corner. Isn’t he the silliest thing?
“Good-by, you old darlings, and don’t forget your little cousin,
“Nannie.”
Julie smiled as she put down the letter. “Isn’t she a darling, Hester? I don’t wonder they call her ‘Kitten,’ she purrs so. And she’s so ingenuous! Imagine her thinking that a man stayed about with her because she talked about us. He evidently took a fancy to her—the dear little thing! I wonder who he was.”
“She has forgotten to mention his name,” said Hester, “but it does not much matter. Come, Julie, we must switch our thoughts up from Virginia, or we’ll never get to work to-day.”
Julie went over to a shelf and stuck the two letters behind a clock. “It is an inspiration to work,” she said, “when we know people are thinking of us and loving us. That money, dear, is a godsend. We had scarcely enough left to market another day.”
Julie, who was self-appointed buyer, had been racking her brains to know how they should get through another day without running into debt—a contingency of which they had a horror. They had stopped all their father’s accounts and were unanimous in agreeing that they would go without that for which they could not pay cash. Accordingly they went without a great deal.
In her first experience of marketing Julie was aghast to find that meats which she regarded as a common necessity cost so much that she was forced to act upon the butcher’s suggestion that it was “stew meat” she wanted. It was not what she wanted, but she took it meekly and ate it with pretended relish, for Bridget took pride in serving a genuine Irish stew.
It was characteristic of the Dales that they never did things by halves, and they threw themselves with tremendous energy into their work, which was developing, though still slowly. Orders for wine jelly and cake came in from people unknown to them, and they knew that Dr. Ware’s influence was working for their good. Miss Ware, too, though outwardly antagonistic, had carried out her intention of taking Hester’s cake to the Sewing Class, with the result that the hostess of the next meeting had ordered all her cake from them for that occasion.
This order they were getting to work on now, and Julie remarked that she wished white cake were not so much in demand, for the continued increase of left-over yolks was appalling.