“I wish you had got me sooner,” said Robin, very low.
“I did not want to get you until—until everything was over. The funeral was this morning. And after that I felt as if I could hardly wait until you came.”
Robin put her cheek against the hand she held, and for a while they were silent.
“You must be just worn out, Mummie,” the girl said, at length.
“Oh, I shall be quite well in a few days. I think I did not know how tired I was until I saw you. Then I seemed to go all to pieces.” She smiled at the bent head. “It was feeling that I had someone to lean upon, I suppose.”
“Well, you’d better just lean hard,” said Robin, sturdily. “You’re going to be an invalid for a few days—I mean to keep you in bed, and make you forget everything: we’ve got such heaps to talk about. Mummie, are we going to be very poor?”
“Are you afraid of being poor?”
“Not a bit. We’ve never been anything else, have we? As long as we are together I don’t mind anything at all.”
“We shall be very poor, my girl. Uncle Donald left me all he had, but it is not much. Most of his income came from money he had sunk in an annuity, and that, of course, died with him. The farm is not valuable. I consulted Mr. Briggs about selling it, but he thinks there would be no chance of that, and that we should get very little, even if we were able to sell.”
“But we can’t work it, can we? I’ll do anything in the world to help, Mummie, but I know two women can’t run the place.”