It is a power like that of a child in leading-strings, but still power.

After the mother and son had gone away and he and his sister were still out in the cool, and the great evening star had come out and it was too dark to work any longer, for the first time he said something about the queer accounts in his books in Captain Carroll's office.
"I suppose it is all right," he said, leaning a second on his hoe and staring up at the star, "but sometimes my books and the accounts I keep look rather--strange to me." "He pays you regularly, doesn't he ?" inquired the sister.

The question of pay could sting her from her numbness.

Once there had been a period, years ago, before Carroll's advent, of no pay.
"Oh yes," replied the brother.

"He pays me.