“But he _will_ be. Judith will refuse him.”
“Because she has never thought of such a thing.”
“I grant that. Why should she? But she _will_ think of it when he suggests it.”
“She will not think of it as he does. He is an old fellow to her; let me see; she was thirteen when she went to Bensalem, and he was—how queer for me to forget—he was twenty-six, just twice her age.”
“He isn’t twice her age now,” observed Mr. Kenney, comically.
“And a woman is always older than a man,” Mrs. Kenney, reflected. “She is nearer his age then, I think, childish as she is. With her hair up she does look older; it’s those blue eyes like a baby, and that complexion. I told Roger she might sit for a picture of Priscilla the Puritan maiden, in her new-fashioned, old-fashioned dress, and he said he had thought of it himself. But, now, Roger,” with a deprecating little appeal, “it will do no _harm_ to bring her here.”
“Not the least bit in the world,” he consented, cheerfully.
“God never loved me in so sweet a way before: ’Tis he alone who can such blessings send: And when his love would new expression find, He brought thee to me, and he said, ‘Behold—a friend.’”
Exactly a month from the day Roger planned the Girl Papers for her, Judith knocked at the study door with her manuscript in her hand. She had written three papers; if he took sufficient interest in the first she would read the others.
Beside the education for herself she had another thought in writing them; she would send them to some child’s paper and earn money. She knew that Marion had never depended upon the parsonage for money; every month her father sent her a check; she had no father to send her a check. No money had come to her from her Cousin Don since his hurried marriage. Probably he considered her old enough to earn money for herself. It would be hard to tell Aunt Affy when she needed a dress, or shoes, or money, when she was not doing anything for Aunt Affy’s comfort.
Last Sunday she had no money for Sunday-school or church; she had no money for anything.
Her last story had been refused, and how she had cried over the refusal. It was even hard to laugh when Roger told her that Queen Victoria had sent an article to a paper under a “pen-name” and it had been “returned with thanks.” She wished she were a dressmaker like Agnes Trembly, or that she could go into a farmer’s kitchen, like Jean Draper’s sister Lottie, and earn money and not be ashamed.