When Ellen told her about the valedictory, Fanny was so overjoyed that she lost sight of her work, and sewed in the sleeves wrong. “There, only see what you have made me do!” she cried, laughing with delight at her own folly. “Only see, you have made me sew in both these sleeves wrong. You are a great child. Another time you had better keep away with your valedictories till I get my wrapper finished.” Ellen looked up from the book which she had taken.
“Let me rip them out for you, mother,” she said.
“No, you keep on with your study—it won't take me but a minute. I don't know what your father will say. It is a great honor to be chosen to write the valedictory out of that big class. I guess your father will be pleased.”
“I hope I can write a good one,” said Ellen.
“Well, if you can't, I'd give up my beat,” said the mother, looking at her with enthusiasm, and speaking with scornful chiding. “Why don't you go over and tell your grandmother Brewster? She'll be tickled 'most to death.”
Ellen had not been gone long when Andrew came home, coming into the yard, bent as if beneath some invisible burden of toil. Just then he had work, but not in Lloyd's. He had grown too old for Lloyd's, and had been discharged long ago.
He had so far been able to conceal from Fanny the fact that he had withdrawn all his little savings to invest in that mining stock. The stock had not yet come up, as he had expected. He very seldom had a circular reporting progress nowadays. When he did have one in the post-office his heart used to stand still until he had torn open the envelope and read it. It was uniformly not so hopeful as formerly, while speciously apologetic. Andrew still had faith, although his heart was sick with its long deferring. He could not actually believe that all his savings were gone, sunken out of sight forever in this awful shaft of miscalculation and misfortune. What he dreaded most was that Fanny should find out, as she would have to were he long out of employment.
Andrew, when he entered the house on his return from work, had come to open a door into the room where his wife was, with a deprecating and apologetic air. He gained confidence when, after a few minutes, the sore subject had not been broached.
To-night, as usual, when he came into the sitting-room where Fanny was sewing it was with a sidelong glance of uneasy deprecation towards her, and an attempt to speak easily, as if he had nothing on his mind.
“Pretty warm day,” he began, but his wife cut him short. She faced around towards him beaming, her work—a pink wrapper—slid from her lap to the floor.