"Certainly—if you decide you want 'em," mumbled the grocer, throwing the last six words as a sop to his conscience which was beginning to stir unpleasantly.
"Oh, yes, I want 'em," averred Helen, her eager eyes sweeping the alluringly laden shelves before her. "I wanted them all the time, you know, only I didn't have enough money to pay for them. Now it'll be all right because Burke'll pay—I mean, Mr. Denby," she corrected with a conscious blush, suddenly remembering what her husband had said the night before about her calling him "Burke" so much to strangers.
Helen found she wanted not only the fruits and jelly, but several other cans of soups, meats, and vegetables. And it was such a comfort, for once, to select what she wanted, and not have to count up the money in her purse! She was radiantly happy when she went home from market that morning (instead of being tired and worried as was usually the case); and the glow on her face lasted all through the day and into the evening—so much so that even Burke must have noticed it, for he told her he did not know when he had seen her looking so pretty. And he gave her an extra kiss or two when he greeted her.
The second month of housekeeping proved to be a great improvement over the first. It was early in that month that Helen learned the joy and comfort of having "an account" at her grocer's. And she soon discovered that not yet had she probed this delight to its depths, for not only the grocer, but the fishman and the butcher were equally kind, and allowed her to open accounts with them. Coincident with this came the discovery that there were such institutions as bakeries and delicatessen shops, which seemed to have been designed especially to meet the needs of just such harassed little martyr housewives as she herself was; for in them one might buy bread and cakes and pies and even salads and cold meats, and fish balls. One might, indeed, with these delectable organizations at hand, snap one's fingers at all the cookbooks in the world—cookbooks that so miserably failed to cook!
The baker and the little Dutch delicatessen man, too (when they found out who she was), expressed themselves as delighted to open an account; and with the disagreeable necessity eliminated of paying on the spot for what one ordered, and with so great an assortment of ready-to-eat foods to select from, Helen found her meal-getting that second month a much simpler matter.
Then, too, Helen was much happier now that she did not have to ask her husband for money. She accepted what he gave her, and thanked him; but she said nothing about her new method of finance.
"I'm going to keep it secret till the stores send him the bills," said Helen to herself. "Then I'll show him what a lot I've saved from what he has given me, and he'll be so glad to pay things all at once without being bothered with my everlasting teasing!"
She only smiled, therefore, enigmatically, when he said one day, as he passed over the money:—
"Jove, girl! I quite forgot. You must be getting low. But I'm glad you didn't have to ask me for it, anyhow!"
Ask him for it, indeed! How pleased he would be when he found out that she was never going to ask him for money again!