"Indeed he does; and you will be so happy, but I do not know as you will be quite so happy as Stella and I shall be, when we get a-going. I am happy now, only one thing troubles me a little, I do not know what I am going to do for a little money for present necessities. I had just paid my month's rent, ten dollars in advance, and bought a piece of linen for my work, and Stella had laid out all of her little stock, and now we are quite out. If you had money as you once had, I should know very well what to do. I should ask you for a loan of five dollars, and I know very well what you would say; no, you would not say anything, you would jump up and run to the little drawer, the left-hand top drawer of the bureau, I can almost see it now, and then you would say, 'there, there it is, go along, I don't want you to stop to thank me.' But that time has past away. I suppose I shall have to do what we poor folks often have to do, go to the pawnbroker again.
"Your trouble, Mrs. May, is just mine too; I want a few dollars so bad that I do not know what to do, and I was about to ask you; I do not like to ask my uncle, so soon, and would not on my own account, but will on yours."
"No, no, no, do not, I can get along very well, I can pawn the linen, I shall not want that for a few days."
"Yes, I will, do not say anything more, I have made up my mind, and here he comes, so it is too late for argument."
There was a rap, and as they did not expect anybody else, of course it must be her uncle; who else should it be? but it was not. It was the same porter who was there last evening. He did not bring any trunk or bundle, he simply brought a letter and a very small package; a letter addressed, "Lucy Smith."
Athalia was on the point of denying it, but then she thought that Mrs. May and Stella both knew that was the name she was known by at Mrs. Laylor's. Still she blushed and trembled. She blushed to think that she had once said of her first name, "I never shall change that." It is a sad thing for a girl to change that. She trembled at the thought of having any of her old acquaintances, who knew her by that name, write to her or speak to her as friends, for they were only friends of days which she would gladly blot out of memory--days of sin and shame, which she looked back upon with horror, as she felt their deep degradation. She trembled still more when she opened the letter, and saw that the signature was Frank Barkley. She felt faint, and her eyes grew dim, for she felt that she was still pursued--"the guilty flee when no man pursueth"--by one with whom she had sinned, and she felt that it was a renewal of the proposition to sin again. She saw the name, and the "Dear Lucy" with which it commenced, she saw no more, she could see no more, and so she handed the letter to Mrs. May, with an "oh, dear!"