"When may we expect you?" he asked. "You have, doubtless, some preliminary arrangements to make, for which you will please take whatever time you may require. Meanwhile, accept this sum in advance."
He drew from his pocket-book a fifty-dollar note, which he handed to Mrs. Codman. She could not feel any embarrassment in accepting a sum so tendered, and bowing her thanks, intimated that she would make her appearance on the following Monday, it being now Thursday.
The advance payment proved very acceptable to Mrs. Codman, as with it she was enabled to replenish her wardrobe, a step rendered necessary by her residence in Mr. Bowman's family. She was busily engaged for the remainder of the week in supplying its deficiencies.
No one could be more overjoyed than was the humble washer-woman at the success of her friend, of which she felt sure from the first, knowing Mrs. Codman to be a rale lady. The latter, feeling that she owed her present good fortune mainly to the zealous recommendation of her friendly neighbor, purchased a neat dress, which Mrs. O'Grady was prevailed upon to accept, on being convinced she would not thereby be distressing herself, a fact of which she was assured on being told of Mr. Bowman's liberality.
Yet there was, as the reader well knows, one thought which contributed to diminish the joy which Mrs. Codman would otherwise have felt at being restored, in a measure, to the mode of life to which she had been accustomed, and relieved from the necessity of unremitting labor in order to sustain life. This was, the thought of Charlie, her own brave, handsome boy, who had been the joy and life of her little household, now gone,—she knew not whither. The uncertainty as to his fate cost her many a sleepless night. She was sustained, however, by a strong confidence that he was yet living, and had little doubt that the suggestion of Peter Manson was correct, that he had been carried off by the captain of some vessel short of hands. Of course, she did not for an instant harbor the suspicion that Peter himself had had anything to do with his disappearance, being quite unaware that any motive existed powerful enough to tempt the old man to such a crime.
"I shall hear from him; I shall see him again," she said, with earnest conviction. "He is under the eye of Providence, wherever he may be, and no harm shall befall him."
Still, even with this strong feeling of trust, there was an uncertainty about the time when her wishes could be realized, which could not fail to weigh upon the mother's heart. Then there was the constant longing for his bright and enlivening presence, greater, because he was her only child, and she was a widow.
The furniture which Mrs. Codman had in her rooms she was enabled to dispose of without a very great sacrifice. She reserved a few articles, endeared to her by association, which she stored in the room of her friendly neighbor.
With her, also, she left a sum of money, sufficient to pay for her month's rent, which would not be due for a fortnight after her removal to the house of Mr. Bowman. Peter Manson was not a little surprised and disappointed when, on visiting his tenant,—prepared to witness her distress and hear entreaties for a reduction of her rent,—to find her already gone, and to hear that she had obtained an advantageous situation, though where, he was unable to ascertain, as Mrs. O'Grady, with whom he was no favorite, was not disposed to be communicative.