“Selling at twelve,” she kept saying to herself; “perhaps at ten; perhaps at five. Would it go lower? Suppose it went down to nothing. What could she say to her mother? How would she pay Mr. Taylor?” Her breath came short; a dull sense of some impending calamity took possession of her. Everything seemed slipping from her grasp. An hour passed--two. In the interim she had indorsed the certificate and had dropped it into the open mouth of the night-bag. Again the bell sounded. “Yes,” she answered in a faint voice; her shoulder was against the wall now for support. She was ready for the blow; all her life they had come this way. “Sold your twenty at ten. Mail you check for $190 on receipt of certificate.” Abbie clutched her bosom as if for relief, but there came no answering throb. The little devil was gone, and the lamp with him. “And is it all over, Abbie?” asked her mother, as she drew her shawl closer about her head. One stick of wood must last them till bedtime now. “Yes--all.” The girl lay crouched at her feet sobbing, her head in her mother's lap. “Can you pay Hiram?” “I have paid him in full. I gave him Mr. Keep's check and ten dollars of my pay--paid him this morning. He wouldn't take any interest.” “Oh, that's good--that's good, child!” she crooned. There came a long pause, during which the two women sat motionless, the mother looking into the smouldering coals. She had but few tears left none for disappointments like these. “And we have got to keep on as we have?” “Yes.” The reply was barely audible. The mother lifted her thin, worn hand, and laid it on Abbie's head. “Well, child,” she said slowly, “you can thank God for one thing. _You had your dream_; ain't many even had that.” End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Abijah's Bubble, by F. Hopkinson Smith