But she said, with assumed sharpness, "See that you keep your accounts straight. I shall be a very dragon over your account-book."
Thus the ice was broken, and Edith and Arden became friends.
The future has now been quite clearly indicated to the reader, and, lest my story should grow wearisome as a "twice-told tale," we pass over several subsequent months with but a few words.
It was not a good fruit year, and Edith's place had been sadly neglected previous to her possession. Therefore, though Arden surprised himself in the sharp business traits he developed as Edith's salesman, the results were not very large. But still they greatly assisted her, and amounted to more than the earnings of her unskilled hands from other sources. She insisted on doing everything on business principles, and made Arden take his ten per cent, which was of real help to him in this way: he gave all the money to his mother, saying, "I couldn't spend it to save my life." Mrs. Lacey had many uses for every penny she could obtain.
Then Edith paid old Malcom by making up bouquets for sale at the hotel, and arranging baskets of flowers for parties there and elsewhere, and other lighter labors. Mrs. Groody continued to send her work; and thus during the summer and early fall she managed to make her garden and her labor provide for all family expenses, saving what was left of the four hundred, after paying all debts, for winter need. Moreover, she stored away in cellar and attic enough of the products of the garden to be of great help also.
Mrs. Allen did recover her usual health, and also her usual modes of thought and feeling. The mental and moral habits of a lifetime are not readily changed. Often and earnestly did Edith talk with her mother, but with few evidences of the result she longed to see.
Mrs. Allen's condition, in view of the truth, was the most hopeless one of all. She saw only her preconceived ideas, and not the truth itself. One day she said, with some irritation, to Edith, who was pleading with her:
"Do you think I am a heathen? Of course, I believe the Bible. Of course, I believe in Jesus Christ. I have been a member of the church ever since I was sixteen."
Edith sighed, and thought, "Only He who can satisfy her need can reveal it to her."
Poor Mrs. Allen! With the strange infatuation of a worldly mind, she was turning to the world, and it alone, for hope and solace. Untaught by the wretched experience of the past, she was led to enter upon a new and similar scheme for the aggrandizement of her family, as will be explained in another chapter.