The captain smiled at Becky. It was a good-humored smile. They were getting on famously.
“I’ll keep your secret, Becky, when I get it.”
“Well, then, you must know that I’ve just learned of a very nice way to make money, one I should like very much. To get it in this nice way, it is necessary to make a journey to Boston, to see a certain man, and he would give me drawing, for engravings. Aunt Rebecca—no, Harry—told me of it; your Harry.”
The captain did not stop her at the mention of that name, a name forbidden to be spoken in that house. There was a little more color in his face; but he looked steadily at her.
“I had the money to take me there, and I was tempted to use it; tempted, O, so hard! till at last I remembered it was your money; and, to put the temptation from me, I brought it to you. I didn’t want to until I had the hundred. Now I’m glad I did. Had I gone, I should have disobeyed Aunt Rebecca, and—Harry.”
“Why disobeyed Aunt Rebecca?” said the captain, quietly dropping the other party.
“Because they,” said Becky, not relishing the dropping game, “forbade my going until the expiration of the school term.”
“How? She forbid you! It’s a good idea; a nice way of earning money; and you want to go still?”
“O, indeed I do, if only it was right.”