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“That Boston girl who was boardin’ up to Skitson’s had a thousand dollars in the bank-made it all in a month–so Abbie Todd, who knew her, said. It was a dead secret how she made it, but Abbie said if she had a few hundred dollars she could get rich, too. Beats all how smart some girls is gettin’ to be nowadays.”

The next morning Mr. Taylor called for his mail. He generally sent a boy down from the mill, but this time he came himself.

“If you see anything lying around loose, Miss Abbie, where you can pick up a few dollars–and you must now and then–so many people going in and out from Boston and other places–and want a couple of hundred to help out, let me know. I’ll stake you, and glad to.”

In answer, Abbie passed his mail through the square window. “Thank you, Mr. Taylor,” was all she said. “I won’t forget.”

Hiram fingered his mail and hung around for a minute. Then with the remark: “Guess that expressman was lying–I’ll find out, anyway,” he got into his buggy and drove away.

“He’ll stake me, will he?” said Abbie thoughtfully. “That’s what the feed man did for Maria’s friend.” With the stake she could get the stock, and with the stock the clouds would lift! Perhaps her turn was coming, after all.

Then she resumed her work pigeon-holing the morning’s mail. One was from Keep & Co., judging from the address in the corner, and was directed to Maria Furgusson, care Miss Skitson–a thick, heavy letter. This she laid aside.

“Yes, a big one,” she called from the window as she passed it out to that young woman five minutes later. “About the stock, isn’t it!”

The girl tore open the envelope and gave a little scream.

“Oh! Gone up to ten dollars a share! Oh, cracky!–how much does that make? Here, Ab–do you figure–twenty shares at–Ten! Why, that’s two hundred dollars! What?–it can’t be! Yes, it is. Oh, that’s splendid! I’m going right back to answer his letter”–and she was gone.

When the supper things were washed up that night, and the towels hung before the stove to dry, and the faded old mother was resting in her chair by the fire, Abbie told her the facts as they existed. She had seen the certificate with her own eyes–had had it in her hand and she had read the letter from the broker, Mr. Keep. It was all true–every word of it. Maria had borrowed forty dollars and now she could pay it back and have one hundred and sixty dollars left–more than she herself could earn in three months.

“If I could get somebody to lend me a little money, Mother,” she continued, “I might–“

The girl stopped and stole a look at her mother sitting hunched up in her chair, her elbows on her knees, the chin resting on the palms of her hands, the angle of her thin shoulders outlined through the coarse, worsted shawl–always a pathetic attitude to the daughter:–this old mother broken with hard work and dulled by a life of continued disappointment.

“I was saying, Mother, perhaps I might get somebody to lend me a little money, and then–“

The figure straightened up. “Don’t do it, child!” There was a note almost of terror in her voice. “Don’t you ever do it! That was what ruined my father. Abbie–promise me–promise me, I say! You won’t–you can’t.”

The girl laid her hand tenderly on her mother’s shoulder.’

“Why, Mother, dear–why, what’s the matter? You look as if you had seen a ghost.”

Mrs. Todd drew her shawl closer about her shoulders and leaned nearer to the girl, her voice trembling:

“It’s worse than a ghost, child–it’s a debt! Debt along of money you never worked for; money somebody gives you sort o’ friendly-like, and when you can’t pay it back, they bite you, like dogs. No–let’s sit here and starve first, child. We can shut the door and nobody ‘ll know we’re hungry.” She straightened up and threw the shawl from her shoulders. Terror had taken the place of an undefined dread.