“Well, I don’t. Anyway, I’ve got other plans,” said Minnie. “I’ll tell you after supper.”
Frances didn’t ask what these plans were, didn’t show any special interest in them, never for an instant suspected their radical and disturbing character. She did not even notice that Minnie was unusually preoccupied.
She hastened into the house to embrace her grandmother and to make and answer all the traditional enquiries; then looked about her with a peculiar emotion that was almost pain. She loved the old place, in a way; looked toward it while absent as her home and sure refuge, dreamed of it often with longing, but with devout thankfulness that she was no longer imprisoned in it. The memory of the two years she had suffered there was ineradicable.
Minnie and her grandmother seemed to her pitiful, small and shabby. She wanted ardently to help them and to change and improve them. She tried to keep this benevolence out of her manner, but it was always there, and they felt it.
She told them that she hoped soon to be able to send money home regularly.
“I’m going to study shorthand,” she told them, “and then I’ll be able to earn much more.”
She saw their faces, unconvinced, not even much interested, and her enthusiasm waned. She would have to prove her good intentions to them.
II
Supper was over, and the dishes washed and put away. It was rather later than usual, on account of Frankie’s talkativeness, and the old lady announced that she was going “right straight to bed.” To her great surprise, Minnie stopped her.
“Please, Grandma,” she said, “I want to talk to you for a minute. Frankie too. Please come into the parlour.”