Lillie took it, and read it with her hands trembling.
“Well, dear me, John! I don’t see any thing in this letter. If they have failed, I don’t see what that is to you!”
“But, Lillie, I am indorser for them.”
“How very silly of you, John! What made you indorse for them? Now that is too bad; it just makes me perfectly miserable to think of such things. I know I should not have done so; but I don’t see why you need pay it. It is their business, anyhow.”
“But, Lillie, I shall have to pay it. It is a matter of honor and honesty to do it; because I engaged to do it.”
“Well, I don’t see why that should be! It isn’t your debt; it is their debt: and why need you do it? I am sure Dick Follingsbee said that there were ways in which people could put their property out of their hands when they got caught in such scrapes as this. Dick knows just how to manage. He told me of plenty of people that had done that, who were living splendidly, and who were received everywhere; and people thought just as much of them.”
“O Lillie, Lillie! my child,” said John; “you don’t know any thing of what you are talking about! That would be dishonorable, and wholly out of the question. No, Lillie dear, the fact is,” he said, with a great gulp, and a deep sigh,—“the fact is, I have failed; but I am going to fail honestly. If I have nothing else left, I will have my honor and my conscience. But we shall have to give up this house, and move into a smaller one. Every thing will have to be given up to the creditors to settle the business. And then, when all is arranged, we must try to live economically some way; and perhaps we can make it up again. But you see, dear, there can be no more of this kind of expenses at present,” he said, pointing to the dresses and jewelry on the bed.
“Well, John, I am sure I had rather die!” said Lillie, gathering herself into a little white heap, and tumbling into the middle of the bed. “I am sure if we have got to rub and scrub and starve so, I had rather die and done with it; and I hope I shall.”
John crossed his arms, and looked gloomily out of the window.