Mrs. Zelotes went out of the house with a jerk of angry decision, and presently returned with a bottle half full of whiskey.
“Here,” said she to Ellen, “you pour out a quarter of a tumbler of this, and fill it up with hot water. I ain't goin' to have the whole family in an asylum because Jim Tenny has run off with another woman, if I can help it!”
The old woman's steady force of will asserted itself over the hysterical nature of her daughter-in-law. Fanny drank the whiskey and water and went to bed, half stupefied, and Mrs. Zelotes went home.
“You ring the bell in the night if she's taken worse, and I'll come over,” said she to her son.
When Ellen and her father were left alone they looked at each other, each with pity for the other. Andrew laid a tender, trembling hand on the girl's shoulder. “Somehow it will all come out right,” he whispered. “You go to bed and go to sleep, and if Amabel wakes up and makes any trouble you speak to father.”
“Don't worry about me, father,” returned Ellen. “It's you who have the most to worry over.” Then she added—for the canker of need of money was eating her soul, too—“Father, what is going to be done? You can't pay all that for poor Aunt Eva. How much money have you got in the bank?”
“Not much, not much, Ellen,” replied Andrew, with a groan.
“It wouldn't last very long at eighteen dollars a week?”
“No, no.”
“It doesn't seem as if you ought to mortgage the house when you and mother are getting older. Father—”