Rossie thought a moment, and then replied:
“Will it make any difference who writes the receipt?”
“Not at all; the signature is what gives it its value.”
“Then will you please give me a form,—a true one, you know,—which I can copy and send, and ought I not to register the letter to make it safe?”
She was quite a little business woman, and the old lawyer looked at her admiringly as he gave her the necessary directions, suggesting that a draft or post-office order would be better than to send the money. But Rossie did not care for so much publicity as she fancied drafts and post-office orders would involve. She preferred to send the bills, a fifty, a twenty, and a five, directly to Joe, and she did so that very afternoon, for, as good luck would have it, Beatrice asked her to drive to an adjoining town, where she registered and posted her letter, and felt as if a weight were lifted from her mind. She had no suspicion of Joe’s playing her false. He would, of course, return the receipt, and Mr. Everard would be free, and her heart was almost as light as her head when she returned home and went to Everard’s room. That poor shorn head, how it stared at her in the glass, and how she tried to brush up the short, wavy hair, and make the most of it. But do the best she could, she presented rather a forlorn appearance when she went in to Everard, and asked him how he was.
He had missed her very much that day, and greeted her with a bright smile, so much like himself, that she exclaimed, joyfully:
“Oh, Mr. Everard, you are better; you are almost well!”
He was better, but his mind was still unsettled, and running upon the scrape from which Rossie was to extricate him, and he said to her:
“Have you fixed it yet? Is it all right?”
“Yes, all right,” she answered; and he continued: