d
condition. Won't you please try and stay happy, tucked away fast here
at the Briars, without wanting to wake up and go all over New York,
when I won't know whether you are getting cold or hungry or wet or a
pain in your lungs?"

"Again I promise! Just wake me enough to go out and hoe for you is all
I ask--your row and your kind of hoeing."

"Maybe hoeing in my row will make you finish your own in fine style,"
laughed Rose Mary. "And I think it's wonderful of you to study up our
land so Uncle Tucker can do better with it. We never seem to be able
to make any more than just the mortgage interest, and what we'll wear
when the trunks in the garret are empty I don't see. We'll have to
grow feathers. Things like false teeth just seem to be impossible."

"Do you mean to tell me that the Briars is seriously encumbered?"
demanded Everett, with a quick frown showing between his brows and a
business-keen look coming into his eyes.

"The mortgage on the Briars covers it as completely as the vines on
the wall," answered Rose Mary quickly, with a humorous quirk at her
mouth that relieved the note of pain in her voice. "I know we can
never pay it, but if something could be done to keep it for the old
folks _always_, I think Stonie and I could stand it. They were born
here and their roots strike deep and twine with the roots of every
tree and bush at the Briars. Their graves are over there behind the
stone wall, and all their joys and sorrows have come to them along
Providence Road. I am not unhappy over it, because I know that their
Master isn't going to let anything happen to take them away. Every
night before I go to sleep I just leave them to Him until I can wake
up in the morning to begin to keep care of them for Him again. It was
all about--"

"Wait a minute, let me ask you some questions before you tell me any
more," said Everett, quickly covering the sympathy that showed in his
eyes with his business tone of voice. "Is it Gideon Newsome who holds
this mortgage?"

"Why, yes, how did you know?" asked Rose Mary with a mild surprise in
her eyes as she raised them to his, bent intently on her. "Uncle
Tucker had to get the money from him six years ago. It--it was a debt
of honor--he--we had to pay." A rich crimson spread itself over Rose
Mary's brow and cheeks and flooded down her white neck under the folds
of her blue dress across her breast. Tears rose to her eyes, but she
lifted her head proudly and looked him straight i