“Desborough Hughes!” she declared. “I shouldn’t do this for any one else on earth.”
“I appreciate it, Aunt Kate,” he agreed.
But when he explained his intention, her face grew mighty grim.
“Women!” she exclaimed. “You didn’t mention that in your letter, Desborough!”
“I know,” he said. “But—”
“All you told me,” she went on, “was that you wanted to open that house your Uncle Joseph left you out at Green Lake, and that you wanted me to keep house for you and some friends of yours for awhile. Not a word did you say about women.”
“I didn’t think it would make any difference—”
“Well, it does!” said she. “I don’t know that I’m inclined to keep house for a parcel of idle women.”
Hughes said that there were only two of them, a mother and a daughter.
“And why can’t they keep house for themselves?”