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“Now about the boys, Dorothy,” he said two hours later, as they stood together by the fire in the low, oak-finished room at the foot of the stairs, which was his office and book-room. The door was ajar, so Dorothy might hear her mother’s bell. “Don’t you think they had better be sent to school somewhere?”

“Yes,” said Dorothy, “they ought to go to school–but–well, I may as well tell thee the truth! There’s very little to do it with. We’ve had a poor summer. I suppose I’ve managed badly, and mother has been sick a good while.”

“You’ve forgotten about the pond-rent, Dorothy.”

“No,” she said, with a quick flush; “I hadn’t forgotten it; but I couldn’t ask thee for it!”

“I spoke to your father about monthly payments; but he said better leave it to accumulate for emergencies. Shouldn’t you call this an ’emergency,’ Dorothy?”

“But does thee think we ought to ask rent for a pond that has all leaked away?”

“Oh, there’s pond enough left, and I’ve used it a dozen times over this summer! I would be ashamed to tell you, Dorothy, how my horn has been exalted in your father’s absence. However, retribution has overtaken me at last; I’m responsible, you know, for all the damage last night. It was in the agreement that I should keep up the dams.”

“Oh!” said Dorothy; “is thee sure?”

Evesham laughed.

“If your father were like any other man, Dorothy, he’d make me ‘sure,’ when he gets home! I will defend myself to this extent: I’ve patched and propped them all summer, after every rain, and tried to provide for the fall storms; but there’s a flaw in the original plan–“

“Thee said that once before,” said Dorothy. “I wish thee wouldn’t say it again.”

“Why not?”

“Because I love those old mill-dams! I’ve trotted over them ever since I could walk alone!”

“You shall trot over them still! We will make them as strong as the everlasting hills. They shall outlast our time, Dorothy.”

“Well, about the rent,” said Dorothy. “I’m afraid it will not take us through the winter, unless there is something I can do. Mother couldn’t possibly be moved now, and if she could, it will be months before the house is fit to live in. But we cannot stay here in comfort, unless thy mother will let me make up in some way. Mother will not need me all the time, and I know thy mother hires women to spin.”

“She’ll let you do all you like, if it will make you any happier. But you don’t know how much money is coming to you. Come, let us look over the figures.”

He lowered the lid of the black mahogany secretary, placed a chair for Dorothy, and opened a great ledger before her, bending down, with one hand on the back of the chair, the other turning the leaves of the ledger. Considering the index, and the position of the letter B in the alphabet, he was a long time finding his place. Dorothy looked out of the window, over the tops of the yellowing woods, to the gray and turbid river below. Where the hemlocks darkened the channel of the glen, she heard the angry floods rushing down. The formless rain mists hung low, and hid the opposite shore.

“See!” said Evesham, with his finger wandering rather vaguely down the page. “Your father went away on the third of May. The first month’s rent came due on the third of June. That was the day I opened the gate and let the water down on you, Dorothy. I’m responsible for everything, you see,–even for the old ewe that was drowned!”

His words came in a dream as he bent over her, resting his unsteady hand heavily on the ledger.

Dorothy laid her cheek on the date she could not see, and burst into tears.

“Don’t–please don’t!” he said, straightening himself, and locking his hands behind him. “I am human, Dorothy!”