“What! Haven’t you heard?” she asked. “Don’t you know that Netty is going to leave us? Harry Bent proposed yesterday afternoon at the Ocklebournes’. He’s going away, too—and you may neither of you come back.”
“Hush, hush, mother! We’re all leaving somebody behind, and we can’t all come back. Don’t let us talk of it. I’ll run over and pay the check into my account, and then draw a little for everybody—something on account to keep them quiet.”
He looked at it—the check—lovingly, and sighed with satisfaction. 79
“Since grandfather has turned up trumps, mother,” Dick suggested, “it would only be decent of me to go up and thank him, wouldn’t it? I’ve got to go up and say good-bye, anyway.”
“No, Dick don’t go,” cried the guilty woman, nervously.
“But I must, mother. It won’t do to give him any further excuses for fault-finding.”
“If you go, say nothing about the money.”
“But—”
“Just to please me, Dick. Thank him for the money he has given you, and say nothing about the amount. Don’t remind him. He might relent, and—and stop the check or something of that sort.”
“All right, mother.” And Dick went off to the bank with the check, feeling that the world was a much-improved place.