"Yes, I have. I telegraphed his brother, and he telegraphed back I could bring him on to his house in Boston and see if anything could do any good, though I don't believe there's a doctor anywheres better than Dr. Fairbairn," said the woman, disdaining to wipe away the tears that had gathered in her eyes, and thus seeming to deny their presence. "You ain't heard the worst. Here I am, been slaving and scrimping all my days—you know just how near he's always been—and getting more tired every year, and losing all my children except Maimie there, who ain't any too rugged, and the only thing that kep' me up was thinking that we was saving and putting by each year, so's if anything should happen we'd have a tidy sum to pull through on. And as soon's he was struck, and Dr. Fairbairn told him the truth about himself, according to the doctor's principles of fair dealing with his patients, and had left, he called me to him, and he up and told me what I hadn't so much as an idea of. He's been drawing that money out of the bank and buying stocks through some kind of a firm that advertised in the papers just to catch country folks, and they kep' writing he was losing, with just enough gain once in a while to egg him on, till he used up every penny we had saved, and there ain't one red cent to show for all these years! It was worrying about it that brought on the stroke, I guess—land knows it's enough to give any one one! He never dared tell me, but when he was took he didn't dare not to. Now, I ask you, Mis' Grey, if that ain't just like a near man, to save and scrape and go without act'al necessaries of life, and then be caught by a glittering humbug that promises things even Maimie had ought to know it wouldn't fulfil?"
"I am afraid it is," assented Mrs. Grey, as the flood of Mrs. Flinders' passionate eloquence paused for her reply. "It's not an unusual story, but it is none the less a tragic one. I can't tell you how sorry I am for you—and for Mr. Flinders, too; poor, deluded, stricken man!"
Mrs. Flinders swallowed what barely escaped being a great sob, and Miss Charlotte asked: "But what does it all stand for, what degree of misfortune, I mean? What are you going to do, Mrs. Flinders?"
"How am I going to live, do you mean?" asked the poor woman, turning to the compassionate face that could not see her own. "The land knows; I don't. There's no use trying to plan ahead. That's what I've been doing, and now look at what's come of it! I know I'm going to his brother's in Boston with him, and that's as far's I know."
"But Polly?" suggested Rob, clasping closer the little girl on her knee.
"Yes, that's what I was coming to, Roberta," said Mrs. Flinders, turning to Rob with an embarrassment that was at the same time relief. "I've been studying all the way here how I'd say it to you. First I thought I'd tell you the story, and ask your advice about Polly. Then I thought you'd see plain enough what I was hoping, and I ain't any hand to beat around the bush, anyway; I like straight cuts best. Polly—'s you call her—sets more by you than by any one on this earth, not excepting me and her father. You took her here that time when she was pindling away out of the world, and I guess there ain't much doubt you saved her life. Would you see your way to taking her now for a spell? I hate to ask a favour, but I don't know which way to turn."
"We should have offered to take the child if you hadn't asked, Mrs. Flinders," said Mrs. Grey quickly. "Polly isn't any more trouble than the little mouse in the wall that Kiku can never catch, because it keeps in its hole there. Of course we will take little Polly, and keep her safe as long as you want to leave her with us. We are only too glad to get her back. Polly heard the last word my dear husband spoke, and Polly sang him into his long sleep while she was singing to her dolly."
Mrs. Grey spoke very softly, and Rob's face dropped on Polly's smooth head.
Polly's care-worn mother, worn into hardness and unloveliness, broke down at this. "Oh, Lord," she said, not as an exclamation, but prayerfully, "this life is queer. Sylvester Grey took just when he was ready to live, and that poor, mean-souled, grasping man of mine throwing away the work of his whole hard life, and then struck down helpless on top of it! Well, I'm more obliged to you for your taking Maimie, and for the way you do it than I can say. I won't let her stay any longer'n I can help, but I've told you the whole story, and you can see just what my prospects are. We've got to sell our farm—'tain't valuble, but it'll bring something, if only some one wants it, and after that I've got to support him and me and Maimie, till she's old enough to do for herself."
Mrs. Flinders had risen as she spoke and the Greys arose too.