A Daily Rate

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Book: Read A Daily Rate for Free Online
Authors: Grace Livingston Hill
she not do? Why, a thousand dollars would enable her to do some of the nice things she longed so to do. She could bring aunt Hannah here to the city, and set up a tiny home with her m it somewhere. With that much money to start on, they could surely make their living, she in the store and aunt Hannah at home sewing. It flashed across her mind that that was just the sum Mrs. Morris had wished for. She had said if she only had a thousand dollars she could pay her debts and have enough left to start on and get out of her uncomfortable life.
    How nice it would be if she, Celia, could have money enough to say, “I have the thousand dollars, Mrs. Morris, and I will give it to you. You may pay those people and go away to some more quiet, restful life.” Then how delightful it would be to take that poor miserable boarding-house and make it over. Make the boarders’ lives cheerful and pleasant, give them healthful food and clean, inviting rooms to live in! What a work that would be for a lifetime! If she ever did get rich, she believed she would do just that thing. Hunt up the most wretched boarding-house she could find and take it, boarders and all, and make it over. She believed she could do it with aunt Hannah’s help. Aunt Hannah could cook and plan, and she could execute and beautify. The thought pleased her so well that she carried it out into details, during the long walk back to her boarding-house that night. She even went so far as to think out what she would give them for dinner the first night, and how the dining- room should appear—and how their faces would look when they saw it all. What fun it would be! Miss Burns should have something every night that would tempt her appetite, and the poor old lady in the third story should be given the very tenderest cut in the whole steak, so she need not tremble so when she cut it. And there was that poor young school-teacher, he needed rich creamy milk. She had heard him decline the muddy coffee several times and once he asked if he might have a glass of milk, and Maggie had told him they were all out of milk.
    She debated whether she would retain her position in the store and decided that she would for a time, because that would give her a chance to carry out some plans without letting the boarders know who was at the bottom of it all. Things should not be changed much at first, except that everything should be made entirely clean and wholesome. Then gradually they would begin to beautify. Perhaps the others would help in it. Perhaps she could lure the young man from the dry goods store into spending an evening at home and helping her. She had a suspicion that he spent his evenings out, and remained late in places which did him no good, to say the least. It would do no harm for her to try to get acquainted with him and help him, even if she never got a fortune to enable her to raise her neighbors into better things. She ‘would begin the reformation of young Mr. Knowles that very evening, if there came an opportunity. With these thoughts and plans in mind she completed her long walk in much shorter time than usual and with a lighter heart. It did her good to have an interest in life beyond the mere duties of the hour.
    She found Mrs. Morris in much the same state of depression as on the day before. The doctor had urged again that she go to the hospital for regular course of treatment. She was as determined as ever that she would not, or rather could not do it. She wanted Celia to come and sit with her. She had taken a liking to her new boarder, and she did not hesitate to say so, and to declare that the others were an unfeeling set who bothered her and didn’t care if she was sick. Celia tried to cheer her up. She gave her a flower which one of the other workers in the store had given her, and told her she would come up after dinner was over. Then she went down to the table, and found Mr. Knowles seated before his plate looking cold and coughing. She wondered if her

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