“Mother-mine, what?” The girl’s face was radiant. “Granddad’s hidden fortune hasn’t been found, has it?”
Mrs. Burgess shook her head. “And never will be,” was her response. “This is something real. Mrs. Martin is offering you a term’s tuition at the Vine Haven Boarding School in exchange for a few hours a day of your time to be spent teaching the very little girls in the primary class.”
Mrs. Martin noted Virginia’s quick glance of surprise, but the others did not. Then the girl from the West correctly figured out just what had happened, and turned to see how Eleanor would receive the news. Not as she had expected, for, dropping on the stool at her mother’s feet, she clasped her hand, as she said, “Though in one way I’d like to go to Vine Haven better than anything I could do, I just couldn’t leave you. Why, Mother-Mine, who would live with you in our tiny apartment? Who would have ready for you the things you ought to eat when you come home each night so tired after helping poor women who do not know how to help themselves and their babies. I just couldn’t do it, Mother-Mine. I couldn’t be happy knowing that you needed me.” Then rising, the girl impulsively held out both hands to Mrs. Martin. “Thank you though. Thank you more than words can tell. I’ve just longed to go to Vine Haven Seminary and, perhaps, some time I may be able to, but I can’t leave mother now, for, you see, she isn’t well, and I want her to need me.”
They had all risen and the visitors were about to leave, when sleigh bells were heard, and Eleanor skipped once more to the front door to see who the new arrival might be.
“Why, it’s Doctor Warren! Has he come for us so soon, Mother, do you suppose? We weren’t expecting to return for another fortnight, were we?” Before Mrs. Burgess could reply, the good man bustled in. “Well, well,” he said when he saw visitors, “I’m glad to find that you are not lonely. Don’t hurry away,” he held out a detaining hand when introductions had been made, “Mrs. Martin, since you are so old a friend of my patient, I may need your aid in persuading her to do something upon which my heart is set. She’s stubborn, Mrs. Burgess is, as perhaps you know, but she has always said that if the time ever came when she could help my wife, she’d be glad to do it.”
Here Mrs. Burgess interrupted. “Of course I shall keep that promise. What do you want me to do?”
The good man fairly beamed. “That wife of mine wishes to spend a few months abroad, Italy and the like, and she insists that you are the companion she wants with her, and she simply won’t take no for an answer. It will do more to restore your health than anything else can and now all that remains is to decide what our little Eleanor is to do in the meantime. I have thought—”
“Oh, Doctor Warren,” the girl leaped forward and caught the hands of their old friend. “I’m disposed of for I am to be a sort of a teaching pupil for the rest of the term at the Vine Haven Seminary.”
“Fine! In the words of Billy Shakespeare, ‘All’s well that ends well.’”
And so the matter was evidently decided although Mrs. Burgess had said not one word.