"You must be crazy."
"Are you going to turn her out into the storm, mom, like the girl in the melodrama?"
Mrs. Payson was silent a moment. Then, "Does she know anything about housework? Belle's always saying her Gussie's such a treasure. I'm about sick of that Hulda. Wastes more every week than we eat. I don't see what they do with it—these girls. If we used a pound of butter this last week we used five and I hardly touch——"
"Jeannette doesn't want to do housework. She wants to go to business college."
"Well, of course, if you're running a reform school."
But she made no further protest now. Lottie, peeling off her mother's wet clothing as soon as they entered the house, pleaded with her to go to bed.
She was startled when her mother agreed. Mrs. Payson had always said, "When I go to bed in the middle of the day you can know I'm sick." Now she crept stiffly between the covers of her big old-fashioned walnut bed with a groan that she tried to turn into a cough. An hour later they sent for the doctor. An acute arthritis attack. Lottie reproached herself grimly, unsparingly.
"I'll get up around four o'clock," Mrs. Payson said. "You don't find me staying in bed. Belle does enough of that for the whole family." At four she said, "I'll get up in time for dinner.... Where's that girl? Where's that girl that was so important, h'm? I want to see her."
She was in bed for a week. Lottie covered herself with reproaches.