“I don’t believe much in the new moon, it has cheated me so often; but I do believe in presentiments, and I have one that something will turn up. I’ll wait awhile and see,” she said, as the silvery crescent was lost again under a cloud. Beginning to feel a little chilly, she went back to the house, where she found her father reading his evening paper.
This reminded her of a New York Herald she had bought on the car of a little newsboy, whose ragged coat and pleasant face had decided her to refuse the chocolates offered her by a larger boy and take the paper instead. It was lying on the table, where she had put it when she first came in. Taking it up, she sat down and opened it. Glancing from page to page, she finally reached the advertisements, and her eye fell upon that of Mrs. Hallam.
“Oh, father, Dorcas, I told you something would turn up, and there has! Listen!” and she read the advertisement aloud. “The very thing I most desired has come. I have always wanted to go to Europe, but never thought I could, on account of the expense, and here it is, all paid, and five hundred dollars besides. That will save the place. I did not wish the new moon for nothing. Something has turned up.”
“But, Bertha,” said the more practical Dorcas, “what reason have you to think you will get the situation? There are probably more than five hundred applicants for it,—one for each dollar.”
“I know I shall. I feel it as I have felt other things which have come to me. Theosophic presentiments I call them.”
Dorcas went on: “And if it does come, I don’t see how it will help the mortgage due in October. You will not get your pay in advance, and possibly not until the end of the year.”
“I shall borrow the money and give my note,” Bertha answered, promptly. “Anybody will trust me. Swartz & Co. will, anyway, knowing that I shall come back and work it out if Mrs. Hallam fails me. By the way, that is the name of the people who lived here years ago. Perhaps Mrs. Carter belongs to the family. Do you know where they are, father?”
Mr. Leighton said he did not. He thought, however, they were all dead, while Dorcas asked, “If you are willing to borrow money of Swartz & Co., why don’t you try Cousin Louie, and pay her in installments?”
“Cousin Louie!” Bertha repeated. “That would be borrowing of her proud husband, Fred Thurston, who, since I have been a bread-winner, never sees me in the street if he can help it. I’d take in washing before I’d ask a favor of him. My heart is set upon Europe, if Mrs. Hallam will have me, and you do not oppose me too strongly.”
“But I must oppose you,” her father said; and then followed a long and earnest discussion between Mr. Leighton, Dorcas, and Bertha, the result of which was that Bertha was to wait a few days and consider the matter before writing to Mrs. Hallam.