“Why of course it can’t, Honor, unless in exchange for another typewriter! Of course the man isn’t going to give me back the money. How foolish you are!”
“Foolishness must run in the family,” said Honor. “I think Aunt Sophia was quite right when she said we were nothing but children and not fit to take care of ourselves. If you go on in this way, we shall soon have to take refuge in Beacon Street, after all. I think you might at least have consulted us before you bought it. I suppose you were afraid to. That is the reason you were so anxious to go yourself to buy the desks. You had made up your mind before you went, to get this thing.”
“I hadn’t at all, Honor,” cried Katherine, stung by this accusation. “I hadn’t the least idea of doing it until I saw them in the window. If I had happened to go through any other street, I should never have dreamed of getting it. It was evidently intended that we should own a typewriter, for I was led right up to the window.”
“An easy sort of philosophy,” remarked Honor.
“Oh well,” interposed Victoria, “it is done, so there is no use in lamenting. We may as well make the best of it, though the next time you go to Boston, Katherine, I think Honor and I had better be on each side of you to keep you from being ‘led up’ to windows. If you had been ‘led’ to Toppan’s window, would you have bought all that you saw there? Or to Shreve’s, or Bigelow’s? Oh, Katherine!”
And then Victoria, who had been undecided for some time as to whether she should laugh or cry, began to laugh.
“I think it is too funny!” she exclaimed. “I feel as if we had a white elephant in the house. In addition to everything else that we have to do we have all got to learn typewriting, so as to make it pay! Oh, Katherine, Katherine!”
Honor hesitated a moment. The situation was amusing, and Victoria’s mirth was contagious, but she felt very angry. Then seeing that Katherine was looking troubled, she decided that she too had better try to laugh it off. After all, it was very funny. And presently they were all laughing so uproariously, that B. Lafferty again opened the door and peeped in at them, wondering what amusing article had come by express.
Suddenly, however, Katherine became sober.
