"You are enough of a friend to know, Mr. Eltwood," she said, "I rather thought you did know. I am engaged."
"Thank you for telling me; some one is greatly to be congratulated," he spoke sincerely, and talked quietly on about less personal matters, holding his tea untasted till it was cold.
"Do let me give you some that is hot," she said at last, "and let me thank you from my heart for the help and strength and comfort you have been to me, Mr. Eltwood."
"I'm very glad," he said; and again, "I am very glad." "You may count upon anything I can do for you, always," he continued. "I am proud to be your friend."
He held her hand once more for a moment, and went away with his head up and a firm step. To one who watched him go, he had almost a triumphant air, but it was not triumph, only the brave beginning of a hard fight and a long one.
Then came Mrs. Bell, returned from a shopping trip, and sank down in a wicker rocker, glad of the shade and a cup of tea. No, she didn't want it iced. "Hot tea makes you cooler," was her theory.
"You don't look very tired," said the girl. "Seems to me you get stronger all the time."
"I do," said her mother. "You don't realize, you can't realize, Diantha, what this means to me. Of course to you I am an old woman, a back number—one has to feel so about one's mother. I did when I married, and my mother then was five years younger than I am now."
"I don't think you old, mother, not a bit of it. You ought to have twenty or thirty years of life before you, real life."
"That's just what I'm feeling," said Mrs. Bell, "as if I'd just begun to live! This is so different! There is a big, moving thing to work for. There is—why Diantha, you wouldn't believe what a comfort it is to me to feel that my work here is—really—adding to the profits!"