“I do not know yet; I shall have to consider that point a while.”
Then, after a few minutes’ thought, and pitying his distress, she added:
“At all events, whatever I undertake, if I fail, I promise you I will not refuse the home you offer me; and if I need a friend I shall always know where to find him.”
She held out her hand to him with a sweet, winning smile, and again the strong man broke down, weeping like a child, and there was not a dry eye in the room excepting her own.
“What a foolish set we are!” exclaimed the doctor, after a vigorous blowing of the nose. “This young lady shames us all. Succeed? Of course, she’ll succeed, and I say God bless her—she is an honor to the name which she bears.”
After a few more remarks the gentlemen took their departure, and the two girls were once more alone.
“Brownie Douglas, you surely did not mean what you told Mr. Conrad!” exclaimed Aspasia Huntington, the moment the door closed after them.
“I told him quite a number of things; to what in particular do you refer?”
“Why, working for your living, to be sure.”
“Certainly, I meant it; there remains nothing else for me to do.”