"'Sorry'! But that does n't feed me. You must speak to her, Helen. I can't eat codfish like that. You must speak to-night when you take the dishes back."
"Very well, mother; but—well, you know we don't pay very much."
"Then pay more. I'm sure I shouldn't think you'd grudge me enough to eat, Helen."
"Mother! How can you say a thing like that!" Helen's voice shook. She paused a moment, a dish half-dried in her hands; but from the other room came only silence.
Supper that night was prepared with unusual care. There was hot corncake, too,—Mrs. Raymond liked hot corncake. It was a little late, it is true; Helen had not planned for the corncake at first—but there was the codfish. If the poor dear had had nothing but codfish! . . . Helen opened a jar of the treasured peach preserves, too; indeed, the entire supper table from the courageous little fern in the middle to the "company china" cup at Mrs. Raymond's plate was a remorseful apology for that midday codfish. If Mrs. Raymond noticed this, she gave no sign. Without comment, she ate the corncake and the peach preserves, and drank her tea from the china cup; with Mrs. Raymond only the codfish of one's daily life merited comment.
It was at the supper table that Helen's mother brought out the letter.
"You don't ask, nor seem to care," she began with a curious air of injured triumph, "but I've got a letter from Herbert."
The younger woman flushed.
"Why, of course, I care," she retorted cheerily. "What does he say?"
"He wrote it several days ago. It got missent. But it's such a nice letter!"