"He wasn't worth all I went through for him yesterday," thought Missy. And then she took it back, and thought, in an instant, he was worth a great deal more—which was a way of hers.
Mr. Andrews sat down on the other side of the window, and said, with a weary laugh, as he leaned back in his chair, "I'm glad it's to-day, instead of yesterday."
"Ah!" said Missy, with a shiver.
"I don't know how much you've heard of our adventures—"
"I haven't heard anything. I have just come down-stairs, and last night I wouldn't let them tell me. I only wish I could forget it all. I cannot bear to think of it."
"I don't wonder. It was bad enough for us, who were doing something all the time, but for you, who couldn't do anything but wait, it must have been—well, there's no use going over it. We've got him, Miss Rothermel, and that's enough to think about. Only let me tell you this, if it hadn't been for you, we should not have him now."
"If it hadn't been for me, you wouldn't have lost him at all," said Missy, bitterly.
"I don't understand—you mean the woman's hostility to you? I really think that had very little to do with it. She is such an evil creature, she would have done the same, or worse, without that for an excuse. You may, rather than reproach yourself for that, congratulate yourself upon having been the means of sending her away, before the child was totally corrupted. When I think what danger he—they—were in from her, and how little I suspected it, I am more than ever convinced that I am not fit to have the care of him. Believe me, you did me, as well as the children, an inestimable favor, when you advised me to send those creatures away; and to you I owe a year of comfort and peace, and Jay owes, I don't know what."
Missy flushed painfully, and her companion saw it, but he went on ruthlessly, "You never will let me allude to this, Miss Rothermel; but I want to say one thing about it, now we are on the subject, and then I will promise not to trouble you again. You are so over-sensitive about this matter you have made yourself uncomfortable, and—well—though it's not of much importance—you've made me uncomfortable too. If you will believe me when I say I shall always consider you did me the greatest favor when you induced me to send those servants away, and if you will bear in mind the benefit you did the children, you will surely be able to be indifferent to the tattle of a set of people whose tongues are always busy about their betters, in one way or another. If they were not talking about this, they would be talking about something else; it was only the accident of your hearing it that was unusual. I have no doubt in our kitchens every day are said things that would enrage us, but luckily we don't hear them. This has been such a barrier between us, Miss Rothermel; won't you be good enough to make way with it to-day, and promise not to think of it again? You have given me a new cause for gratitude in what you did for Jay yesterday. Surely, after what we both went through we can never be exactly like—like strangers—to each other. I hope you'll let me come a little nearer to being a friend than you've ever permitted me before, though if I recollect, you made a very fair promise once about it."
"Why haven't I kept it? I can't remember having—"