"I'm ashamed of myself," she declared briskly. "I don't know what made me cry like that—Alec and the boys would think I had lost my mind. No, I couldn't take a dress from you, Rosemary—I don't really need it, anyway. Thank you, just the same. We need so many things that I vow there is no place to begin to replenish; a dress would be a drop in the bucket."
They both laughed a little at Louisa's mixed metaphor and the laughter cleared away the last trace of the tears. As they washed and dried the mountains of dishes, Louisa explained that what was really troubling her, was the interest.
"The interest on the mortgage, you know," she said earnestly. "It is due the first of September. Mr. Greenleaf holds the mortgage and Alec is desperately afraid he will foreclose."
Rosemary's experience with mortgages dated from that minute, but she sensed the importance of the interest.
"Perhaps the potatoes—" she suggested hopefully, having great faith in Alec's main crop.
"We owe for the seed and the fertilizer," answered Louisa. "And last year's taxes are not paid; and if we do manage to scrape together enough to pay the interest, I don't see what we're going to live on the rest of the year."
Rosemary had to admit that the outlook was discouraging. She scoured a paring knife thoughtfully and polished it off before she ventured a new suggestion.
"Why doesn't Alec go to this Mr. Greenleaf, and tell him that he is having a hard time?" Rosemary proposed. "Ask him to wait a little longer for his money. Hugh waits when people can not pay him; I heard Winnie say that he never collects a bill, but waits for the money."
Louisa looked graver than ever.
"The one thing we must never do, and you must never, never tell," she said impressively, "is to go to Mr. Greenleaf. Just as soon as it is known in town that we are having a hard time to get along, do you know what will happen? They'll take the farm away from us and send us to the poor farm—probably bind Alec and me out and separate the family for good and all. My father and mother would rather have us dead than paupers."