"There's nothing wonderful about it," Hertha replied, despondent again. "I've come back with nearly half my money gone and have failed at everything."
"You haven't failed at all," was Ellen's emphatic answer. "Of course it might have been better to have gone with Miss Witherspoon and have done the thing she planned; study dressmaking. But you didn't, and it's wonderful the way you made your way alone. Of course, Mammy and I couldn't help worrying—New York was such a big place for you to be dropped down in without a friend—but we needn't have feared."
Amazed at this unexpected praise, Hertha let her sister go on.
"It must have been great working in a factory and going out on strike! And Kathleen, I should love her! And if you didn't like stenography probably you got a good deal out of the course though you don't appreciate it now. You and Tom don't make plans but I notice you have all the experiences. I'm so proud of you," Ellen ended. "I reckon quiet folks have got more in them, more real character, than talkative ones like me."
"Don't!" Hertha clutched her sister's dress and hid her face on her shoulder. "Don't say that! If I'm good it's only chance——"
She stopped and in the silence that followed it would have been hard to have told which heart beat the faster.
"Sister," Ellen whispered. "What happened? I wish you'd let me know, it's better than guessing. You said, before you went away from here, that he despised you. What was it? I don't like to believe he's bad, he's been so good to Mammy and me. Really good, not patting you on the head the way his father does. Mammy got to relying on him. And he's made it so easy and pleasant for me at school it's one reason I ought to go away. I need a harder job."
With all her thought of herself, Hertha could not help smiling at this Hercules who must always move to a "higher and harder" task.
"He tried to get news of you when he went to New York. He told Mammy he meant to bring some word, but he couldn't."
"That's partly why I didn't send you my address."