I thought you had, though."
Suddenly Cicely understood him.
"There is no sort of sense in your going away, Cis," Billy said to her,
as soon as he heard of her talk with Gifford Barrett. "Your Cousin
Theodora and I both would be delighted to have you stay here for the
present. The fact is, child, we shall miss you awfully, and can't stand
it to have you go. You will stay with us; won't you?"
"I wish I could; but it wouldn't be fair. Papa needs me."
"You can't do any good, Cis. You're better off here."
"To live on you, and leave papa alone to stand things, the best way he
can? That's not my way, Cousin Will."
"But if you can't help him?"
"I can. If I couldn't do anything else, I could make a little corner of
home for him, and he will need it. He needs me. We have been together
always, till just this last year when he had to go away, and now I'm not
going to leave him to shift for himself."
"Do you know what you are undertaking, Cicely?" he asked her gravely.
"I think I do," she answered quite as gravely. "We shall have to go into
a horrid little flat, somewhere in the wrong end of town, and pinch and
scrimp to get along. I hate it, hate the very idea of it, and I wish I
could stay here; but it is all out of the question. If papa ever needed
the good of a daughter, it's now, and I must meet him when he lands.
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