“I believe you two are in league,” grumbled the doctor. “Whatever one of you says the other one swears to.”
He would have been thoroughly convinced of it had he been present at an interview that took place between them before Louis went home that night.
“What we are to do, how we are to manage, Louis, I really can’t see,” said poor Alice. “The doctor has some bills out, but I can’t say when they will be paid, and, until then, I have literally not a penny—that I can use—except what I can earn by the sewing you got for me to do.”
“Frau Anna can give you as much as you want,” replied Louis; “her department is doing a big business just now. I hope you won’t be angry, Mrs. Richards, but I talked matters over with Miss Sally, and she made some very practical suggestions.”
“Did she!” replied Alice rather coldly; but Louis was not easily discouraged, and went on to say that Miss Sally had averred that dealing at “Prices” was no economy unless one made a thorough job of it. “Buying a cake here and a loaf of bread there is all nonsense,” Miss Sally had said; “let her shut up her kitchen and discharge her cook, and she’ll see the difference.”
“It will save work as well as money,” said Louis. “By the by, should you mind if Freddy could get some work to do?”
“Freddy! what could he do, poor boy!”
“Well,” replied Louis, reddening deeply, “it seems that the slippers I—we—made for—for—Miss Randolph were very much admired. Miss Dare ordered a pair just like them before she left, to be sent after her to Paris, but her mother will pay for them; and at least twenty pairs have been ordered since then, for Commencement slippers. Annie Rolf, you know, works in the pottery, in the decorating-room; and of course hasn’t time for such a job as that; and if Freddy could do it, we could get a good price for him, for the extra work, and it would be a great accommodation to us.”
“Freddy will be delighted,” said Alice quietly; “and—you know what a help the money will be, Louis.” She stroked the fair hair from his brow with a motherly touch, thinking how much older and paler he had grown in these last weeks. But Alice did not know how her own troubles had helped Louis. His was the temperament to resist the first force of any shock, and sink beneath the consequent re-action. He had not resented or despised Pinkie’s scorn, for there was no anger in his heart towards her; but he had rallied his forces to the defence of a life, a world, which he felt intuitively were in essentials, in aim and possibility, nobler and purer than that from which she ventured to look down upon him. Only when she was far away did he realize that hope, light, and color had gone out of his life so utterly as is only possible at eighteen. Then, he had one day found Alice in tears, and, when his tender questioning had drawn her troubles from her, Louis had gained a new object to live for.
So now when she said, “I don’t know what I should do without you, Louis,” he clasped and kissed her like a son.