"Miss Letty," says he, "I know just how you feel. My cousin Jed, he lost his folks a year ago. They took down with the typhoid, and they suffered frightful—"
"I'm so sorry, Mr. Fred," says Letty.
I explained. "Fred," says I, "is his other front name. His final name is Backus."
She colored up pretty, and went right on—it was curious: she hadn't been with me twenty-four hours hardly, and yet she didn't look a bit plain to me now.
"Mr. Backus," Letty says, "I've been thinking. Miss Marsh and I have got a little money we're not using. Don't you want to borrow it, and keep on at business college, and pay us back when you can?"
"Gosh!" says George Fred.
If I hadn't been aiming to be a lady, I dunno what I might have said similar.
They talked about it, and then George Fred went off, walking some on the ground and some in the air. "Letty!" says I, then, "where in this world—"
"Why," says Letty, "I'm going to get just headstones instead of a monument—and leave that boy be a bookkeeper instead of a delivery boy. Father and mother—" it was the only time I heard her catch her breath sharp—"would both rather. I know it."