“Very well, then,” said Minnie at last, “if you’re going to take it that way ... if you refuse to—to co-operate, Grandma, then I’ll have to accept an offer I had of a position in an office.”
“What office?” Frankie asked, with interest.
“Mr. Petersen’s. He says I can have your place. I’ll go down to the village to-morrow and find a girl to stay with Grandma while I’m away.”
Now, both Frances and Minnie knew that, on account of her liability to those mysterious “attacks,” it wouldn’t do to leave the old lady alone, and they wouldn’t have done so under any circumstances, but she, poor old soul, terrified before their confident youth, not knowing what resources they had, felt them to be capable of everything. She pictured herself, solitary again, ill perhaps, with a strange servant prowling about, prying into everything, pilfering, undoubtedly setting the house on fire....
It was a most painful scene; she broke down, cried, surrendered. Minnie, although with tears in her eyes, saw her opportunity and pressed her point.
“Grandma dear,” she said, “tell us just what you have, and we’ll arrange some way to manage.”
The old lady confessed resentfully to a sole income of twenty-five dollars a month. They were incredulous.
“But in that case,” said Frances, “you must.... Why, there must be....”
“About how much do you suppose—we—owe?” asked Minnie.
This question the old lady couldn’t answer, because she actually did not know. She had never attempted to calculate; it was a topic she did not care to think about. She mentioned a number of tradespeople who had been “very nice”; in fact, she deluded herself into the belief they enjoyed serving a Defoe. They were, she assured the girls, perfectly willing to wait. Wait for Heaven knows what!