She believed in the bottom of her heart that Stephen might have secured a tenant, if he had tried.

He had once, in speaking of the matter, dropped a sentence which had shocked her so that she could never forget it.
"It would be a great deal better for me," he had said, "to have the money invested in some other way.

If the house does fall into my hands, I shall sell it; and, even if I don't get the full amount of what father loaned, I shall make it bring us in a good deal more than it does this way." This sentence rang in Mercy's ears, as she read in Stephen's letter all his plans for improving the house; but the thing was done, and it was not Mercy's habit to waste effort or speech over things which could not be altered.
"I am very sorry," she wrote, "that you have been obliged to take the house.

You know how I always felt for poor old Granny Jacobs.

Perhaps we can do something to make her more comfortable in the alms-house.