Mr. Luddington gazed after her a second; and then, taking his glasses off and wiping them energetically, he remarked: "Well, well, bless my soul! It must be getting late! We've had such a good time I didn't realize. Those certainly were good buckwheats, Miss Cloud. I shan't forget them very soon. And now I suppose we'd better get down to business. Could we just go into the other room there, and close the door for a few minutes, not to be interrupted?" and he cast an anxious glance toward the stair-door again.
Julia Cloud smiled understandingly, and ushered them into the little parlor ablaze with fall sunshine, its windows wreathed about with crimsoning woodbine; and, as she caught the glow and glint from the window, she remembered the gray evening when she had looked out across into her future as she supposed it would be. How beautiful and wonderful that the gray had changed to glow! As she sat down to enter into the contract that was to bind her to a new and wonderful life with great responsibilities and large possibilities, her heart, accustomed to look upward, sent a whisper of thanksgiving heavenward.
The details did not take long, after all; for Mr. Luddington was a keen business man, and he had gone over the whole proposition, and had the plan in writing for her to sign, telling just what were her duties and responsibilities with regard to his wards, just how much money she would have for housekeeping and servants and other expenses, and the salary she would receive herself for accepting this care.
"You're practically in a position of mother to them, you know," he said, beaming at her genially; "and I declare I never laid eyes on a woman that I thought could fill the part better!"
Julia Cloud was quite overwhelmed. But the matter of the salary troubled her.
"I think it should not be a matter of money," she demurred. "I would rather do it for love, you know."
"Love's all right!" said the old man, smiling; "but this thing has got to be on a business basis, or the terms of the will will not allow me to agree to it. You see what you are going to undertake means work, and it means sticking to it; and you deserve pay for it, and we're not going to accept several of the best years out of your life for nothing. Besides, you've got to feel free to give up the job if it proves too burdensome for you."