"Of course you must go; and, perhaps, in a way it's as well you must, though I'm so sorry to hear about Polly and Jennie; but I'm afraid that in any case I should have had to ask you to go."
"Nora! Am I so much in the way as that?"
"It is not only you who are in the way; we both of us are, both you and me. Mr. Guldenheim and his friends have come, and, in consequence, I also am leaving Cloverlea."
"Nora! What do you mean?"
Nothing could have been more eloquent than the amazement on Elaine's face.
"You knew that they were going to sell everything to pay what it appears were my father's debts; well, it's come a little sooner than I expected, that's all."
"But where will you go? What will you do?"
"Something; don't fear. 'God's in His heaven, all's well with the world.' I don't doubt there's a place in it somewhere for me."
"Oh, Nora, if I could only take you home with me! But it's such a poor place, and so small; and now it's like a hospital, with all the children ill of that dreadful fever, and papa writing that he's nearly penniless; what do you think yourself?"
It was rather a neat way of passing on the responsibility.