The collections, then, those from Mr. Young and his ilk excepted, were
satisfactory. Mary was enabled to buy and pay for a modest assortment of
summer supplies, those she had selected while in Boston. The store she
had thoroughly cleaned and renovated. The windows were kept filled with
attractive displays of goods, and the prices of these goods, as set
forth upon tickets, were attractive also. Business began to pick up, not
a great deal at first, but a little, and as May brought the first of
the early-bird summer cottagers to South Harniss, the silent partner
of Hamilton and Company awaited the coming of what should be the firm's
busiest season with hope and some confidence.




CHAPTER XXI


During all this time she had heard from Crawford at least once a week.
He would have written oftener than that, had she permitted it. And in
spite of her determination so bravely expressed in their interview over
the telephone, she had written him more than the one letter she had
promised. In that letter--her first--she told him the exact situation
there at home; of her discovery that her uncles were in trouble, that
the small, but to them precious, business they had conducted so long
was in danger, and of her determination to give up school and remain at
South Harniss where, she knew, she was needed. Then she went on to tell
of her still greater discovery, that instead of being a young woman of
independent means, she was and always had been dependent upon the bounty
of her uncles.