"And at the same time there may be some reason for the debtors' belief that creditors are robbers."
"Oh!" cried Dolly, "that it were all ended."
"It will be some day, please God," he answered. "And now, Dolly, do get to bed; your white face will disturb my dreams. When had you anything to eat?"
"I don't think I have eaten anything since Thursday," she answered; "anything, I mean, worth calling a meal."
"You will kill yourself if you go on as you are doing," he said, but she shook her head.
"I am going to live to a hundred and forty, like the Countess of Desmond, who died in consequence of a fall from a cherry-tree," Dolly explained. "I shall be a great-great-great-grandmother, and I shall inculcate upon the first, second, third, and fourth generations the truth of that old proverb, 'Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.'"
"Never mind pence or pounds either, Dolly. I wish you would take care of yourself."
"Why?" she asked; then went on, "I wonder if on the face of the earth besides Archie and Lenore, and Esther and Mrs. Werner, and perhaps my Aunt Celia, there is a creature who would be really sorry if I died to-night?"
"Do you exclude me?" Rupert marvelled.
"You have not lived long enough to be very sorry about anything except your own affairs—about any trouble coming to those connected with you unless their sorrow means loss of comfort to yourself."