A good many bills had been allowed, the last Midsummer, to stand over till Michaelmas; and a good many more had been allowed to stand over till Christmas. It was no wonder that the tradespeople were getting impatient at last.
But I did not know how bad things were, till that day when I came into the parlour, and found mother crying. I had been helping to cook, and my hands were all floury. Mother often cried at little things, but this was something worse than common. I knew it in a moment from her face.
"What's wrong, mother?" I asked, and I shook the flour from my hands and came close to her.
"Matter enough," said she. "But it don't signify. You won't understand."
"Maybe I should," I said. "I am not a child now, you know."
"Aren't you?" she said, and she looked at me. "No, you are getting tall, to be sure. You're taller than me." And then she burst out crying afresh. "O Phœbe!" said she,—"father's been so awfully angry."
"What about, mother?" I asked.
"Why, about everything," said she, sobbing. "About everything, Phœbe. He says I'm ruining him, and it's all my fault if we can't pay our way, and he says I'm just worth nothing at all. I wonder whatever poor father would have said to hear him,—poor father as used to dote on me so. And I'm sure, if I have spent money, wasn't it Miles himself that told me to get whatever I liked? And now to have him turn on me like this."
"But what made father angry to-day?" I asked.
"Why, it's nothing at all," said she. "He's only just been looking at the bills. He said he'd see how much it was altogether, and it came to more than he looked to find. He did get in a fury. It made me feel so fluttery-like, I don't seem to have got over it yet, and my heart beats like anything. And it isn't my fault. I didn't know there were so many things not paid for. He was always telling me he hadn't got money in hand, so I could have things put down to him at the shops."