Читать книгу Jewel sowers. A novel онлайн

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“I’ve been here long enough,” she said dully. “I must go and see to things. Sit here, Rosalie. It isn’t for you to be about.”

Her dull grief repelled all sad advances. From the time that Rosalie found her lying there cramped against the bed she showed no further signs of weakness, no further signs of giving in, till the funeral was over.

Then when the blinds were drawn up once more, and the November light had flooded the room, she took her foster daughter in her arms and wept as only a broken-hearted woman growing old can weep.

“We went to school together,” she said at last, twisting her wet soiled handkerchief around her fingers. After that she scarcely mentioned her husband again.

But now time showed a great difference in the little household, in addition to its greatest loss. Money troubles and worry, of late months thickening ominously, had helped to bring about the sudden end. There were no more happy meals at tea-time, no bread to toast, nothing but the barest, rude necessities of life. For they were poor, so poor that they scarcely knew how to look the future in the face. Both were very helpless.