Page:George Weston--The apple-tree girl.djvu/73

 every day. Too much for any farm team."

"Then why does anybody live here?"

"Search me!" said the candid Mr. Briggs. "No place else to go, I guess."

Whereupon he retired again behind his enormous mustache, and poor Charlotte's heart felt so heavy and moved so strangely that it might have been a little pair of millstones in her bosom, grinding a grist of doleful premonitions. Knowing herself to be not far from tears she opened her bag for her handkerchief, and the first thing that touched her hand was that purple memorandum book in which she had entered her Three Great Sums.

"To make everybody like me!" she thought, looking around. "To make myself famous! And to marry a millionaire! Snf-ha!"

"Did you speak? " asked Mr. Briggs.

"N-no," said Charlotte in an uncertain voice. "I was laughing; that's all."