"People that don't know how to get rid of a servant have got no business with servants," said Sarah bitterly. "Here I am, a stout, able-bodied woman, holdin' my hands all day, when I ought to be doin' my own work just as I always have."
"You couldn't do your work in this house," argued David. "It would break you down if you tried it."
"There it is again," cried Sarah. "The house! It's the house that's to blame for everything. Why, it was just last week I met Molly Matthews on the street, and she turned her head away and wouldn't speak to me! Molly Matthews that nursed me when I had the fever and that's been like a sister to me all these years!"
David's face darkened angrily. "What right has Molly Matthews to fall out with you, because you've got a better house than she has? That's just envy."
"No, it's not envy!" cried Sarah in loyal defense of the absent friend. "I know Molly as well as I know myself. She hasn't changed, but she thinks I've changed; she thinks I feel above her just because I've got this two-story brick. And I don't blame her a bit. When we left Millville and moved into town, it looked just like we had turned our backs on all our old friends. I'd feel just as Molly does, if I were in Molly's place. I've wanted to have Molly and Annie and all the rest of my friends to spend the day with me,—I've only waited because I wanted to feel at home in my own house, before I had visitors,—but now I can't do it. We've got a fine house, David, and plenty of money, but we've lost our old friends; and what is life without friends?"
The god of Mammon had showered his favors on these simple souls, but they would never be worshippers of the god. David, too, had felt the barrier of wealth rising, hard and cruel, between him and the friends of a lifetime, and his heart echoed Sarah's question, "What is life without friends?"
"Well," he said, with an effort at lightness, "if our old friends forsake us, we'll have to make new ones."
"But I don't want new friends!" cried Sarah, with the accent of a fretful child, "Haven't I just told you I couldn't talk to that Mrs. Emerson?"
A sudden thought seemed to strike David. He took out his watch and glanced at it. "It's time for you to take another dose of the medicine the doctor left. I have to go down-town for a few minutes. You lie still and see if you can't sleep a little."
He handed her the medicine and left the room. Sarah waited till he was out of the house, and then she rose hastily from the bed and began making a hurried toilet.