"I'm certainly glad they did, since it has given me a chance to see you this way. Why, Dolly, do you know that dress is simply marvelous. I have always thought you were--" Mostyn half hesitated--"beautiful, but this dress makes you--well, it makes you--indescribable."
Avoiding his burning eyes, Dolly frankly explained the situation. "You see it is a sort of windfall," she added. "I've got enough saved up to pay for it as it is, but if it were not a bargain I could never dream of it. Mary's father is well off, and she is the special pet of a rich uncle."
Glancing down the road, she saw the bowed figure of a man approaching, and at once her face became grave. "It is Tobe Barnett," she said. "I want to ask him about Robby."
Leaving Mostyn, she hastened to the fence, meeting the uplifted and woeful glance of Barnett as he neared her. "Why, Tobe, what is the matter? You look troubled. Robby isn't worse, is he?"
"I declare, I hardly know, Miss Dolly," the gaunt man faltered. "I'm no judge, nor Annie ain't neither. She's plumb lost heart, an' I'm not any better. The doctor come this morning. He said it was a very serious case. He--but I don't want to bother you, Miss Dolly; the Lord above knows you have done too much already."
"Tobe Barnett, listen to me!" Dolly cried. "What are you beating about the bush for? Haven't I got a right to know about that child? I love it. If anything was to happen to that baby it would kill me. Did the doctor say there was no--no hope?"
"It ain't that, exactly, Miss Dolly." Barnett avoided her eyes and gulped, his half-bare, hairy breast quivering with suppressed emotion.
"Well, what is it, then?" Dolly demanded, impatiently.
"Why, if you will know my full shame it is this, Miss Dolly," he blurted out, despondently; he started to cover his face with his gaunt hand, but refrained. "I'm a scab on the face of the world. I've lost the respect and confidence of all men. The doctor left a prescription for several kinds of medicine and a rubber hot-water bag and syringe. I went to the drug store in Darley and the one here in Ridgeville but they wouldn't credit me--they said they couldn't run business on that plan. And I can't blame 'em. I owe 'em too much already."
"Look here, Tobe!" Dolly was leaning over the fence, regardless of the fact that the sleeves of the new dress were against the palings. "How much do those things cost?"