[CHAPTER XLII.]
THE COURAGE OF DESPAIR
Grace Cameron was making a pretence of breakfast when Mary and Connie arrived. Her pallid face was more flushed than usual, her cough very distressing. But she had no thought for herself directly the story came to be told.
"You poor dears!" she cried. "What a cruel misfortune! To have lost everything in this way is doubly terrible. Oh, if it were only possible for you to stay here! The house is almost full up, and my landlady is independent accordingly. I am expecting every day that she will ask me to go--the breakfast in bed and my late rising give a great deal of trouble. There seems to be nothing that I can do."
"Oh, yes, there is," Connie said cheerfully. "You can help us wonderfully. For the moment we are absolutely penniless. Our idea is to take a bed sitting-room together, for a few shillings a week, and restore confidence, in lieu of personal belongings, by paying the rent in advance. I want you to lend me a sovereign for about a week."
"But my dear, I haven't got it," Grace said in deep distress. "I only kept a few shillings out of the money you gave me yesterday, the rest I posted to my mother not an hour ago. If I had only known! And I suppose you can't possibly draw any more money from the Wheezer till the end of the week!"
"I might have done so," Connie said. "I had the week's drawings finished. They must be in tomorrow or I shall certainly do no more work in that quarter. They were all lying ready on my table when I came round here last night."
"Oh, this is dreadful," Grace cried, with the tears in her eyes. "If you had not returned here then, this dreadful thing would never have happened. To think that your kindness and goodness to me should have produced a result like this! Oh, Connie, what are you going to do, what can you do?"
"Oh, please don't," Connie said unsteadily. "It was no fault of yours. I daresay we shall manage to muddle through some way or another. It is a great pity that so many of our circle are so hard up just at present."
"And Miss Dashwood is as badly off?" Grace asked.