"'Lina must have fifty dollars. The necessity was imperative, and they had not fifty to send unless Hugh sold his uncle's watch, but she did not know what it was worth—could Alice tell her?"
"Worth more than you will get," Alice said, and then, as delicately as possible she offered the money from her own purse, advancing so many reasons why they should take it, that poor Mrs. Worthington began to feel that in accepting it, she would do Alice a favor.
"She was willing," she stammered, "but there was Hugh—what could they do with him?"
"I'll manage that," Alice said, laughingly. "I'll engage that he eats neither of us up. Suppose you write to 'Lina now, saying that Hugh is better, and inclosing the money. I have some New York money still," and she counted out, not fifty, but seventy-five dollars, thinking within herself, "she may need it more than I do."
Easily swayed, Mrs. Worthington took the pen which Alice offered, but quickly put it from her, saying, with a little rational indignation, as she remembered 'Lina's heartlessness:
"I won't write her a word. She don't deserve it. Inclose the amount, and direct it, please."
Placing the money in an envelope, Alice directed it as she was bidden, without one word of Hugh, and without the slightest congratulation concerning the engagement; nothing but the money, which was to replace Ellen Tiffton's bracelet.
Claib was deputed as messenger to take it to the office, together with a hastily-written note to Mr. Liston, and then Alice sat down to consider the best means of breaking it to Hugh. Would he prove as gentle as when delirium was upon him; or would he be greatly changed? And what would he think of her? Alice would not have confessed it, but this really was the most important query of all.
Alice was not well pleased with her looks that morning. She was too pale, too languid, and the black dress she wore only increased the difficulty by adding to the marble hue of her complexion. Even her hair did not curl as well as usual, though Mug, who had dried her tears and come back to Alice's room, admired her so much, likening her to the apple blossoms which grew in the lower orchard.
"Is you gwine to Mas'r Hugh?" she asked, as Alice passed out into the hall. "I'se jest been dar. He's peart as a new dollar—knows everybody. How long sense, you 'spec'?" and Mug looked very wise, as she thus skirted around what she was forbidden to divulge on pain of Hugh's displeasure.