"Oh, he doesn't care. Jenny is his favourite, and he will let her do anything he thinks she has set her heart on. But he has never put his whole life into the children's as I have done."
"But if she goes, will you be able to send Harry?"
"Of course, Harry's education must come before everything else—even Oliver realizes that. Do you know, I've hardly bought a match for ten years that I haven't stopped to ask myself if it would take anything from Harry's education. That's why I've gone as shabby as this almost ever since he was born—that and my longing to give the girls a few pretty things."
"You haven't bought a dress for yourself since I can remember. I should think you would wear your clothes out making them over."
The look in Virginia's face showed that the recollection Susan had invoked was not entirely a pleasant one.
"I've done with as little as I could," she answered. "Only once was I really extravagant, and that was when I bought a light blue silk which I didn't have made up until years afterwards when it was dyed black. Dyed things never hold their own," she concluded pensively.
"You are too unselfish—that is your only fault," said Susan impulsively. "I hope they appreciate all you have been to them."
"Oh, they appreciate me," returned Virginia with a laugh. "Harry does, anyhow."
"I believe Harry is your darling, Jinny."
"I try not to make any difference in my feeling—they are all the best children that ever lived—but—Susan, I wouldn't breathe this to anybody on earth but you—I can't help thinking that Harry loves me more than the others do. He—he has so much more patience with me. The girls sometimes laugh at me because I am old-fashioned and behind the times, and I can see that it annoys them because I am ignorant of things which they seem to have been born knowing."