“Oh, indeed it was,” agreed Etta’s mother. “I was thinking only yesterday how we used——”
“You made a great mistake,” interrupted Jeannette, “in letting her bob her hair. It’s affected her whole character. She was never quite so frivolous before.”
“That was her father’s doing,” said Alice mildly.
“Oh, well,—he’d let her do anything she wanted! She has but to ask! ... What do you intend to do with her? Let her run round this way indefinitely? I’d make her take up sewing or cooking or learn some language.”
“Etta can sew quite nicely,” said her mother loyally, “and she’s a good cook. She wants to go to work,—you know that. She thinks you’d have no difficulty in getting her a position at the office.”
“Well, perhaps I would, and perhaps I wouldn’t. But I don’t approve of the idea! She’d much better go to Columbia or Hunter College.”
“But, Janny dear, we’ve been all over that, time and time again. That costs money. It would take several hundred a year to send Etta to college, and we haven’t got it. Roy thinks it’s much more important that Ralph should follow up his engineering at some university.”
Jeannette tapped her pursed lips with a meditative finger.
“When’s he ready?”
“This is his last year in High School.”