“Is there though? Ye’re a sharp lad, Tim. It’s half as much as I’ve airned meself. Put it by and take care of it, lad. Well, I’m goin’ out for a bit,” he added, knocking the ashes from his pipe, “and ye can come wid me, if ye like, Tim,—just for once in a way.”
“No, Uncle,” said Tim; “I’ll bide here, I think; I’m tired.”
Very tired was Tim, and very sad, and sorely puzzled about what he was to do. There was his little venture, so successful, and yet so useless; there was Berty, whom he loved better than all the world, hiding away from him, calling him cruel and declaring she hated him; and there was the pocket-book, of which he felt himself become in some mysterious way the especial guardian, taken out of his reach. But, worse than all, harder than all, for poor, honest, warm-hearted Tim to bear, was the thought that this little Berty, whom he had first learned to love because she seemed so much better than other children, the remembrance of whose goodness and purity had kept him from many a boyish transgression, was going wrong, was setting her heart upon keeping what did not belong to her. Oh, if she would but heed him! Oh, if she would but listen to reason! Perhaps she would now; perhaps she was cooler, and would talk the matter over. He could at least try. So he crept softly up the stairs to Berty’s door. It was quite dark by this time, and all was quiet within. He put his lips to a crack in the panel and called, “Berty! let me in. I want to spake wid ye.” Then he laid his ear to the crack and listened, but heard no sound. She could not be asleep so soon. “Berty, honey!” he called again, coaxingly. “Do let me in.”
“Go away, Tim,” answered a hoarse whisper close to his ear. “Go away. You’ll wake the children, and they must not know.”
No, the children must not know. Tim agreed with her there. The children must never guess upon the brink of what a precipice their sister stood.
“Come out to me, then, Berty,” he whispered, softly; “they’ll not hear.”
“No; go away. I’ll not come out. You’ll be trying to get it. Go away, I tell you.”
“No, I won’t,” said Tim, earnestly. “I promise you I won’t. I only want to talk a little. Come, now,—there’s a dear girl,—come.”
“I won’t, I tell you,” said Berty, decidedly. “I don’t want to talk with you, Tim. You call me names. Go away.”
Tim saw he was losing ground, for he knew from Berty’s voice that she was getting in a passion again; and of all things he dreaded that. What had come to his gentle Berty to get in a passion so easily? At any rate, they must part good friends, or he felt he had no chance left of winning her to a better mind.