When the performance was over Ted and Mrs. Burnham waited for Eva at the stage door, and they all walked home together in the clear, crisp November night. After his congratulations had been gracefully tendered and prettily accepted, Ted was silent, trying a plan for a little supper for his companions; but Mrs. Burnham relieved his perplexity.
“You must stop in for a bit of lunch with us, Mr. Tracy,” said she. “I’ve gotten up a little surprise for Eva, and we both want you to share it, too.”
A dainty little supper it was, more cosy and homelike and wholesome than anything Ted had experienced for years. Alone with these simple friends, his foolish conceits melted away, and the good side of his nature was revealed as it had never been before in Boston. They were all very chatty and confidential. Ted told his troubles, and was tenderly pitied by Eva and wisely advised by her mother. Then the latter, in spite of her daughter’s remonstrances, told their story—how her husband had died when she herself was ill three years before, and how Eva, finding the burden upon her shoulders, had pluckily taken it up and supported her mother in comfort by her wages as a chorus girl.
“It’s been hard sometimes, dearie,” said Mrs. Burnham, as she stroked her daughter’s wavy hair, “but the worst is over now; and, thank God, you are as true and pure a girl as the first night you saw the foot-lights.”
Ted went back to his little room with a lighter, braver heart than he would have thought possible six hours before. The next day and for many succeeding days he went at his work with a dash and vim that could not help bringing success. And when, as often he was, tempted to go back to his old ways, a pair of clear brown eyes seemed to look out of a piquant, merry face straight into his, and to make him refuse with almost rude abruptness.
In the spare moments, that before he would have more than wasted, he wrote out with tender reverence the life-story Mrs. Burnham had told him. His heart was in his work, and the result was a touching and really well-written little tale. A great New York editor thought it was so good, in fact, that he promptly mailed Ted a check for $25 and promised his effort immediate publication. When it did appear the author read it to the principal characters, who listened with tear-wet eyes, and immediately decided that Ted was without doubt the American Dickens.
Its further effect was apparent a few days later, when a gruff but kindly letter was received from Uncle John. One of its paragraphs was as follows:
“I was much pleased with your story in the Cosmopolitan. The heroine is, I suspect, a flesh and blood girl of your acquaintance. If she will marry you, I will settle $2,000 a year on her and change my will again.”
Ted repeated the words to Eva just as they reached her door, after the walk home from the theatre one night.
“Can we live on $2,000 a year?” he asked with a smile, but gravely.