“Yes, I knew that must be troubling you,” Mr. Vale answered; “and I came down purposely to talk matters over with you. This log looks long enough to hold five people comfortably. Suppose we sit down here a few moments.”
So they ranged themselves on the piece of timber, which had been stranded from the wreck of the Starling, and which two days of sunshine had thoroughly dried.
“Now,” said Mr. Vale, “let us proceed to business. Suppose we have these men on our hands for two weeks, how much do you think it is going to cost us?”
“That is what I have been trying to get at,” replied Sister Julia; “all the bedding and things must be paid for, and there is the coal, which we are burning at a lively rate the whole twenty-four hours. These women who help me can't afford to work without wages, though they would be willing enough to, and Bromley the sexton must have something, for he's up a dozen times a night tending to the fires in the two stoves. It seems to me ten dollars a day might be made to cover our running expenses, but I do not see how we can manage to do with less.”
“That will be seventy dollars a week,” said Harry, having worked out the difficult sum on the firm wet sand at his feet; “whew! but that's a lot, and for two weeks it would be twice that.”
“Yes, a hundred and forty dollars,” said Sister Julia; “it is a pretty large sum.”
“And your own services ought not to go unremunerated,” Mr. Vale suggested.
“Indeed they ought! I only wish my pocket were long enough to pay all the bills myself.”
“I've wished mine was, a hundred times over, since the wreck.”
“There's one thing I want to ask you, Mr. Vale,” said Sister Julia, “and that is, if, after all, you think even my time is my own to give. You see while Mr. and Mrs. Fairfax are abroad I am employed by them to care for Reginald. To be sure he is so nearly well now that he does not need me, and Mrs. Murray is like a mother to him, but his lessons will have to be interrupted, and I wondered if Mr. Fairfax would feel I was doing quite right to neglect them.”