"I wish you might do so," said her grandmother, "but I fear we cannot afford it. And, too, I think I would not be able to attend to the housekeeping. When we used to have plenty of servants, it was quite a different matter."
"But granny, dear," cried Dorothy, "I don't mean for you to housekeep. I mean to do that myself. After I get through school, you know, I'll have nothing to do, and I can just as well keep house as not."
"Do you know how?" asked Fairy, staring at her oldest sister with wide-open blue eyes.
"Can you make a cherry pie?" sang Leicester. "I don't believe you can, Dot; and I'll tell you a better plan than yours. You wait until I get out of school, and then I'll go into some business, and earn enough money to buy a big house for all of us."
"Like the one in Fifty-eighth Street?" said Dorothy, softly.
The children always lowered their voices when they spoke of the house on Fifty-eighth Street. Two years ago, when their grandfather died, they had to move out of that beautiful home, and none of them, not even little Fairy, could yet speak of it in a casual way.
The children's father had died only a few years after their mother, and the four had been left without any provision other than that offered by their Grandfather Dorrance. He took them into his home on Fifty-eighth Street, and being a man of ample means, he brought them up in a generous, lavish way. The little Dorrances led a happy life, free from care or bothers of any sort, until when Dorothy was fourteen, Grandfather Dorrance died.
His wife knew nothing of his business affairs, and placidly supposed there was no reason why she should not continue to live with the children, in the ways to which they had so long been accustomed.
But all too soon she learned that years of expensive living had made decided inroads upon Mr. Dorrance's fortune, and that for the future her means would be sadly limited.
Mrs. Dorrance was a frail old lady, entirely unused to responsibilities of any kind; her husband had always carefully shielded her from all troubles or annoyances, and now, aside from her deep grief at his death, she was forced suddenly to face her changed circumstances and the responsibility of her four grandchildren.