Read "In Pawn" by Ellis Parker Butler online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It may be doubted if Henrietta would ever have worked as hard to save herself as she worked that night with Miss Susan to save Lem. At the end of the long plea for the boy, the best Miss Susan would say was that if he was not a thief he was an imp of Satan and she wished she had never set eyes on him. She supposed, however, she would have to keep him for, goodness knew! it was the only way she would ever get her money out of that no-account brother of hers.
Henrietta went back to her room utterly weary and disheartened with the world in general. Lem she sent back to his own room with a warning that he was to try no escape business. The boy was, indeed, too sleepy now to want anything but sleep. He went staggering to his room, and it would be hard to tell whether he or Henrietta was asleep the sooner, for she threw herself on her bed as she was, only removing her hat and jacket, and she did not awaken until the sun on her face and the discomfort of her shoes brought her to herself again. She opened her eyes with a sense that everything was going wrong in her world.