"I tell you I'm glad to see you, sir" he said. "I tried to tell me uncle
what I wanted, but this ain't for him to be mixed up in, anyway, and I
don't think I made it clear to him. I couldn't seem to say the words I
wanted. I can be telling you, sir."
McLean's heart began to thump as a lover's.
"Go on, Freckles," he said assuringly.
"It's this," said Freckles. "I told him that I would pay only three
hundred dollars for the Angel's stone. I'm thinking that with what he
has laid up for me, and the bigness of things that the Angel did for me,
it seems like a stingy little sum to him. I know he thinks I should be
giving much more, but I feel as if I just had to be buying that stone
with money I earned meself; and that is all I have saved of me wages. I
don't mind paying for the muff, or the drexing table, or Mrs. Duncan's
things, from that other money, and later the Angel can have every last
cent of me grandmother's, if she'll take it; but just now--oh, sir,
can't you see that I have to be buying this stone with what I have in
the bank? I'm feeling that I couldn't do any other way, and don't you
think the Angel would rather have the best stone I can buy with the
money I earned meself than a finer one paid for with other money?"
"In other words, Freckles," said the Boss in a husky voice, "you don't
want to buy the Angel's ring with money.
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