Miss Maggie smiled—but she frowned, too.
“No, oh, no—except that Hattie has discovered that a hundred thousand dollars isn’t a million.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Oh, where she’s been this summer she’s measured up, of course, with people a great deal richer than she. And she doesn’t like it. Here in Hillerton her hundred—and two-hundred-dollar dresses looked very grand to her, but she’s discovered that there are women who pay five hundred and a thousand, and even more. She feels very cheap and poverty-stricken now, therefore, in her two-hundred-dollar gowns. Poor Hattie! If she only would stop trying to live like somebody else!”
“But I thought—I thought this money was making them happy,” stammered Mr. Smith.
“It was—until she realized that somebody else had more,” sighed Miss Maggie, with a shake of her head.
“Oh, well, she’ll get over that.”
“Perhaps.”
“At any rate, it’s brought her husband some comfort.”
“Y-yes, it has; but—”