Tilly could restrain herself no longer; her voice rose to a shout of dismay--“Mother Louder, you AIN'T thinking of going to be the Ferguson's _hired girl!_”
“Not their hired girl, Tilly; just their help, so as he can work for those poor starving creatures.” Jane strangled a sob in her throat. Tilly, in a kind of stupor of bewilderment, frowned at her plate. Then her clouded face cleared. If Mrs. Louder had surprised her daughter, her daughter repaid the surprise. “Well, if you feel that way, mother,” said she, “I won't say a word; and I'll ask Mr. Lossing to explain to the Fergusons and fix everything. He will.”
“And while you're gone I guess it will be a good plan to move and git settled----”
For some reason Tilly's throat felt dry, she lifted her cup. She did not intend to look across the table, but her eyes escaped her. She set the coffee down untasted. The clock was slow, she muttered; and she left the room.
Jane Louder remained in her place, with the same pale face, staring at the table-cloth.
“It don't seem like I COULD go, now,” she thought dully to herself; “the time's so awful short, I don't s'pose Maria Carleton can git up to see me more'n once or twice a month, busy as she is! I got so to depend on seeing her every day. A sister couldn't be kinder! I don't see how I am going to bear it. And to go away, beforehand----”
For a long while she sat, her face hardly changing. At last, when she did push her chair away, her lips were tightly closed. She spoke to the little pile of books lying on the table in the corner. “I cayn't--these are my own and you are strangers!” She walked across the room to take up the same magazine which Tilly had found her reading the day before. When she began reading she looked stern--poor Jane, she was steeling her heart--but in a little while she was sniffing and blowing her nose. With a groan she flung the book aside. “It's no use, I would feel like a murderer if I don't go!” said she.
She did go. Harry Lossing made all the arrangements. Tilly was satisfied. But, then, Tilly had not heard Harry's remark to his mother: “Alma says Miss Louder is trying to make the old lady move against her will. I dare say it would be better to give the young woman a chance to miss her mother and take a little quiet think.”