“Thee said that once before,” said Dorothy. “I wish thee wouldn't say it again.”
“Why not?”
“Because I love those old mill-dams. I've trotted over them ever since I could walk alone.”
“You shall trot over them still. We will make them as strong as the everlasting hills. They shall outlast our time, Dorothy.”
“Well, about the rent,” said Dorothy. “I'm afraid it will not take us through the winter, unless there is something I can do. Mother couldn't possibly be moved now; and if she could, it will be months before the house is fit to live in. But we cannot stay here in comfort, unless thy mother will let me make up in some way. Mother will not need me all the time, and I know thy mother hires women to spin.”
“She'll let you do all you like if it will make you any happier. But you don't know how much money is coming to you. Come, let us look over the figures.”
He lowered the lid of the black mahogany secretary, placed a chair for Dorothy and opened a great ledger before her, bending down, with one hand on the back of the chair, the other turning the leaves of the ledger. Considering the index and the position of the letter B in the alphabet, he was a long time finding his place. Dorothy looked out of the window over the tops of the yellowing woods to the gray and turbid river below. Where the hemlocks darkened the channel of the glen she heard the angry floods rushing down. The formless rain mists hung low and hid the opposite shore.
“See!” said Evesham, his finger wandering rather vaguely down the page. “Your father went away on the 3d of May. The first month's rent came due on the 3d of June. That was the day I opened the gate and let the water down on you, Dorothy. I'm responsible for everything, you see,—even for the old ewe that was drowned.”
His words came in a dream as he bent over her, resting his unsteady hand heavily on the ledger.
Dorothy laid her cheek on the date that she could not see and burst into tears.