"Oh, Louisa!" Rosemary drew nearer in concern. "Haven't you the money for the interest?"
"Not a cent," said Louisa bitterly. "The little we did have saved toward it, we had to spend on a pump. The old one gave out and you can't get along without water, no matter what else you can do without."
Rosemary glanced toward the shining new pump—so obviously new and shiny that it made everything else in the kitchen look shabbier by contrast.
"There ought to be some way to get money when you need it," she said earnestly.
"There isn't," Louisa informed her. "Don't you suppose I've thought and thought? No matter how much you need it, there isn't any money to get—and if there was, you wouldn't need it because it would be there to get," and Louisa laughed rather hysterically.
"That may not make good sense," she added, "but I can't help that; it is true."
CHAPTER XXII
SARAH HAS AN IDEA
Rosemary walked home slowly. Louisa, worn out by worry and work, had yielded to the luxury of a good cry and though, when she had wiped her eyes, she declared she felt much better and more cheerful than for a week. Rosemary was not convinced. A glimpse of Alec, thin and brown, with the same worried look in his nice clear eyes, had not helped to convince her. It was plain that both Louisa and Alec were expecting the foreclosure of the mortgage on the farm and anticipating the separation of the family.