“There he is!” she exclaimed. “Bertie, run out and ask Mr. Himes if he will mind coming to the kitchen to see me. Tell him I can’t leave my baking just now, and as there is a lady caller in the sitting-room, and no fire in the parlor, this is the only place where we can have a comfortable private talk.”
Bertie obeyed, and in another minute or two Mr. Himes was stamping the snow from his feet on the back porch.
Miriam opened the door, bade him a cheerful good-morning, invited him in, and set a chair near the fire, apologizing at the same time for asking him there.
“Needn’t say another word, Miss Heath,” he said, seating himself and glancing about him; “it’s a nice, comfortable place to come to out o’ the cold and the snow; neat as wax and warm as toast. But I’m in somethin’ of a hurry, having a long ride to get back home, ye know, and it’s snowing so fast that the roads will be dreadful heavy afore night; so you’ll excuse me if I begin on business at once.”
Miriam had grown pale, and he noticed it.
“I don’t want to be hard on ye,” he said; “you’ve always been prompt with that interest, and I know you was a hopin’ fer to pay off a part o’ the principal this fall. I don’t calkilate ye can do that now (I heard in town this mornin’ ye’d been robbed; and I’m mighty sorry fer it, fer your sake as well’s my own; and I say that gang o’ burglars had ought to be strung up higher’n Haman, every one on ’em); but I hope they didn’t git all, and that you kin let me have the interest, for I’m wantin’ it bad.”
“I wish I could, Mr. Himes,” Miriam said, low and falteringly; “but the burglar got so nearly all, that I can pay only fifty dollars to-day.”
“Why, that’s only a quarter of it!”
“Yes, I know; and I’m very sorry.”
She went on to explain about the loss of the notes and the ground of their hope of speedily recovering them, adding a promise to pay off the remainder of the interest and half the principal immediately upon their restoration.