“I knew it!” she cried joyfully. “I knew Etta Heldt was honest! This is every penny that she owes us.”
The handwriting was difficult to read and for a silent moment Jenny studied it, then brightly she exclaimed: “Oh, such wonderful news!” Then she read:
“Dear Friend:
“I would have written long ago, but my grandpa took sick and was like to die when I got here, and my grandma and I had to set up nights, turn about, and days I was so tired and busy. I didn’t forget though. Poor grandpa died after a month, but I’m glad I got here first. He was more willing to go, being as I’d be here with grandma.
“Now I guess you’re wondering where I got the money I’m sending you. I got it from Hans Heldt. He’s sort of relation of mine, though not close, and he wanted me to marry him and I said no, not till I paid the money I owed. He said he’d give it to me and then we’d make it up working grandpa’s farm together. So we got married and here’s the money, and my grandma wishes to tell your grandma how thankful she is to her and you for sending me home to her. I guess that’s all. Good-bye.
Your grateful friend,
Etta Heldt.”
There were tears in Jenny’s eyes as she looked up. “Oh, Grandma Sue,” she ran across the room and clung to the dear old woman, “aren’t you glad, glad, glad we brought so much happiness into three lives?” Later, when they were at supper, Jenny told about her visit to Poindexter Arms.
There was a sad foreboding in the hearts of the old couple that evening. Although they said little, each was wondering what the outcome of their “gal’s” daily readings would be. “Whatever ’tis, ’twill like to be for the best, I reckon,” was Susan Warner’s philosophic conclusion, and the old man’s customary reply, “I cal’late yer right, Ma! Yo’ be mos’ allays.”
CHAPTER XXII.
REVELATIONS AND REGRETS
Susan Warner reached Poindexter Arms at the hour appointed and found her employer in the lily-pond garden. The old woman curtsied. Her heart was filled with pity. How changed was her formerly haughty mistress. There were more lines in the pale, patrician face than there were in the ruddy countenance of the humbler woman who was years the older. Hesitatingly she spoke: “I reckon you’ve been mighty sick, Mis’ Poindexter-Jones. It’s a pity, too, you havin’ so much to make life free of care an’ happy.” But the sad expression in the tired eyes, that were watching her so kindly, seemed to belie the words of the old woman who had been nurse for Baby Harold and housekeeper at Poindexter Arms for many years.
“Be seated, Susan. Miss Dane, my nurse, has gone to town to make a few purchases for me. Some of them books—” the invalid paused and turned questioningly toward the older woman. “Did your Jenny tell you that I wish to engage her services for an hour or two each morning—reading to me?”
Susan Warner nodded, saying brightly, “She was that pleased, Jenny was! She didn’t tell me just what she was meaning, but she said, happy-like, ‘It will give me a chance to pay a debt.’”
“A debt.” The invalid was perplexed. “Why, Jenny Warner is in no way indebted to me.” Then a cold, almost hard expression crept into her eyes, as she added, “If Gwynette had said that, I might have understood. But she never does. She takes all that I give her, and is rebellious because it is not more.” She had been thinking aloud. Before her amazed listener uttered a comment, if, indeed, she would have done so, which is doubtful, the younger woman said bitterly: “Susan Warner, I have failed, failed miserably as a mother. You have succeeded. That is why I especially wished to talk with you this morning. I want your advice.” Then Mrs. Poindexter-Jones did a very unusual thing for her. She acknowledged her disappointment in her adopted daughter to someone apart from herself.