Mrs. Merritt looked anxiously at Jerome as she placed a chair. “I hope you are well,” she said, in her quick way, but her voice was kind. Jerome thought it sounded like Lucina's. He stammered that he was quite well.
“You look pale.”
When he made no response to that, she added, with a motherly cadence, that he had been through a great deal lately; that she had felt very sorry about the loss of his mill.
Jerome thanked her. He sat opposite, in a great mahogany arm-chair, holding himself very erect; but his pulses sang in his ears, and his downcast eyes scanned the roses in the carpet. He did not understand it, but he was for the moment like a school-boy before the aroused might of feminity of this little woman.
“It is partly about your mill that I want to see you,” said Abigail Merritt. “The Squire has something which he wishes to propose, but he has begged me to do so for him. He thinks my chances of success are better. I don't know about that,” she finished, smiling.
Jerome looked up then, with quick attention, and she came at once to the point. Abigail Merritt, her mind once made up, was not a woman to beat long about a bush. “The Squire has, as you know,” she said, “a legacy of five thousand dollars from poor Colonel Lamson. He wishes to invest part of it. He would like to rebuild your mill.”
Jerome colored high. “Thank him, and thank you,” he said; “but—”
“He does not propose to give it to you,” she interposed, quickly. “He would not venture to propose that, however much he might like to do so. His plan is to rebuild the mill, and for you to work it on shares—you to have your share of the profits for your labor. You could have the chance to buy him out later, when you were able.”
Jerome was about to speak, but Abigail interrupted again. “I beg you not to make your final decision now,” she said. “There is no necessity for it. I would rather, too, that you gave your answer to the Squire instead of me. I have nothing to do with it. It is simply a proposition of the Squire's for you to consider at your leisure. You know how much my husband has always thought of you since you were a child. He would be glad to help you, and help himself at the same time, if you will allow him to do so; but that can pass over. I have something else of more importance to me to say. Jerome Edwards,” said she, suddenly, and there was a new tone in her voice, “I want you to tell me just how matters stand between you and my daughter, Lucina. I am her mother, and I have a right to know.”
Jerome looked at her. His handsome young face was very white. “I—have been working hard to earn enough money to marry,” he said, speaking quick, as if his breath failed him. “I lost my mill. I will not ask her to wait.”