Eunice looked up in a few moments, very white. 'It's from Professor Lansing's sister,' she faltered. 'Miss Lansing is coming on to Chicago this week. She says she would like to see me. She'll stop off in Dayton over night, Saturday probably, and will come out for lunch if it's convenient for us to have her. She can make connections by doing that. Oh, mother, it's beautiful of her to want to come.'
'I don't know that it will do you much good to see her. You'll probably get upset.'
'No, I won't be upset because I'll be so glad. Stephen said she was a wonderful woman, and—we can talk about him. He was at her house only a few days before he—caught cold.'
'Well, I don't know,' said her mother. 'You had better come into the kitchen where it's warm. You look like a ghost, Eunice. I'll give you a cup of soup to drink. It's on the stove now.' She laid nervous compelling fingers on Eunice's arm. 'I suppose,' Mrs. Day was pouring out the soup as she spoke, 'I suppose that Miss Lansing hasn't any idea of the way we live. Even the front stoop looks a sight. It's needed a coat of paint for years.'
'I know,' Eunice answered, her face clouding. 'I wish things were different for Stephen's sake. But we can't help it.'
'No,' said her mother harshly, 'we can't help it. But I wish she wasn't coming for a meal. The last decent tablecloth was cut up into napkins a month ago. I was ashamed of the one we set Mabel Bennet down to the other night.'
Eunice walked to the window. She looked out upon the backyard, upon the snow that was reflecting the sunset, a sentence of one of Stephen's letters in her mind. 'It's the dignity of their living that makes these Washington Square people so worth while.' And then she recalled that other letter. 'It will be jolly to have nice linen. Good linen makes you feel respectable.'
It pained her that they must offer this friend of Stephen's what they had been ashamed to offer Mabel Bennet. Stephen's pride would be hurt, Stephen who had loved that word 'dignity'; and Stephen's pride was her own pride just as much as if she were his wife, as if he were living.
Eunice stood a long time looking out upon the snow, until the rose of the sunset had gone from it, leaving it blue and cold. She turned from the window.
'Mother,'—she was glad that in the darkening kitchen she could not see her mother's face distinctly,—'mother, don't you think we had better use that very fine cloth you gave me, and the napkins, to make the table look nice? Hadn't we better use them?'