“Now, Dave,” said Elviry in a conciliating tone, “you said that Lydia and Amos ought to be warned about Levine.”

“Yes, I did,” exclaimed Dave, with a sudden change of voice.  “You tell your father to come round and see me this evening, Lydia.  I don’t like his attitude on the reservation question.  Tell him if I can’t change his views any other way, I may have to bring pressure with that note.”

Lydia blanched.  She looked at Marshall with parted lips.  She never had heard before the peculiar, metallic quality in his voice that she heard now.  She buttoned her coat with trembling fingers.

“Yes, sir, I’ll tell him,” she said.  “I guess it’s no use to try to be friends with you either.  We’ll pay that note up, somehow.  Even it can’t be allowed to keep us from believing what we believe.”  Her voice strengthened suddenly.  “What’s the use of being an American if you can’t believe what you want to?  We’ll pay that note!  If I have to quit school and go out as a hired girl, we will.”

Dave Marshall looked from Lydia to Margery and back again.  Margery was patting her curls.  Lydia, holding the doll, returned his look indignantly.

“I’m not going to tell my father to come to see you.  I’ll answer right now.  We’ll think and say what we please and you can do whatever you want to about that nasty old note.”

Dave suddenly laughed.  “There, Elviry, that’s what I mean about Lydia’s being the real thing.  You can’t help my being your friend, Lydia, no matter what happens.  But,” grimly, “I’ll call in that note unless your father shuts up.”

“Good-by!” exclaimed Lydia abruptly and she marched into the hall, head held high, and closed the outside door firmly behind her.

It had been a long time since she had known the heavy sinking of the heart that she felt now.  In spite of their desperate poverty, since her interview in the bank with Marshall four years before, she had not worried about money matters.  She had an utter horror of repeating Marshall’s message to her father.  Money worry made Amos frantic.  She plodded along the October road, unheeding the frosty sunshine or the scudding brown leaves that had charmed her on her earlier trip.

In the midst of one of her longest sighs, Billy Norton overtook her.

“Well, Lydia,” he said, “isn’t it chilly for your lady friend?”

“Hello, Billy,” said Lydia, looking up at the young man soberly.  Billy was a sophomore in college.

“I’ll carry her, if your hands are cold, though I’d hate to be caught at it,” he said.

Lydia ignored his offer.  “Billy, is there any way a girl like me could earn $600?” she asked him.

“Golly, not that I know of!  Why?”

“Oh, I just asked.  I wish I was a man.”

Billy looked at the scarlet cheeks and the blowing yellow curls.  “I don’t,” he said.  “What’s worrying you, Lyd?”