One morning, three days after the news reached her, Ursula rang the bell and sent for Tante Louisa’s maid.
“Hephzibah,” she said, “if you are so wretched in this house—and your face proves it—why do you remain?”
Hephzibah began to whimper.
“Klomp won’t have me,” she said; “not unless I bring him enough money to support me. He can’t but just support himself, he says. And Pietje and her child would have to be boarded out.”
“You shall have the money. You can go and tell him so—that is settled.”
But Hephzibah lingered with her apron to her face.
“Forgive me, Mevrouw,” she said; “I never meant no harm to you—but we’re all poor, guilty sinners; and that woman Skiff, the insolent liar, pretending to be wife to honest folks, and then bringing along another husband of her own!”
“You have done me no wrong that I know of,” replied Ursula, calmly; “but I see you are uncomfortable here, and I am willing to help you. Do you hear your foolish voices still?”
Hephzibah shuddered; then she said, enigmatically,