“Oh, impossible! You cannot think how the servants eat; and they won't touch our home-made bread.”
“The fools! Why?”
“Oh, because they think it costs us less. Servants seem to me always to hate the people whose bread they eat.”
“More likely it is their vanity. Nothing that is not paid for before their eyes seems good enough for them. Well, dear, the bakers will revenge us. But is there any other item we could reduce? Dress?”
“Dress! Why, I spend nothing.”
“Forty-five pounds this year.”
“Well, I shall want none next year.”
“Well, then, Rosa, as there is nothing we can reduce, I must write more, and take more fees, or we shall be in the wrong box. Only eight hundred and sixty pounds left of our little capital; and, mind, we have not another shilling in the world. One comfort, there is no debt. We pay ready money for everything.”
Rosa colored a little, but said nothing.
Staines did his part nobly. He read; he wrote; he paced the yard. He wore his old clothes in the house; he took off his new ones when he came in. He was all genius, drudgery, patience.