“You should have some one with you part of the year, at least,” said their aunt, “and it suits me to come here. I had thought of going abroad for the summer, and of taking one of you with me, but there are various matters of importance which must be attended to, and which will suffer frightfully if I am not here to look after them. It is necessary for me to be near town. I shall board with you, of course. I may just as well pay the money to you that I should at a hotel at Magnolia or Nahant, and I don’t care for the sea this year. And I am sure you must be in need of the money. I can’t imagine how you manage to get along on so little.”
Honor ignored the close of this speech, and politely expressed her pleasure at the prospect of such an extended visit from her aunt, though it is to be feared that her tone was not very hearty. She was the only one of the family who could see her, Katherine being in the schoolroom, and Victoria and Peter at school in Fordham. This was one of Mrs. Wentworth Ward’s customs which her nieces considered most aggravating. She invariably came to Glen Arden during school hours, and expected their undivided attention.
Though she paid close observance to her own engagements, she had small regard for those of other people, and her nieces’ methods of supporting themselves she could never be induced to take seriously.
“The first of May will be next Thursday, a week from to-day,” continued she, “and I shall come on the three o’clock train. You may give me your father’s old room. It was mine when I lived here, you know, and I like it.”
“Yes,” murmured Honor, remembering that Katherine now occupied the room, and wondering what she would say to being turned out. “And is there anything else you would like, Aunt Sophia? I think perhaps I had better get another cook, and let B. Laf—I mean Blanch—do the upstairs work. She is not a very superior cook, and with such a large family we shall need two servants.”
“I will bring my waitress, Ellen Higgins, who has been with me so long,” rejoined Mrs. Ward, briskly. “I intended to suggest it, and she is an excellent cook herself, and can give Blanch—extraordinary name for an Irishwoman, Honor!—she can give Blanch lessons in cooking. I will also, and there are a number of other things that I want to teach you. Therefore you may expect me in the 3 P.M. train on Thursday, the first day of May. I shall bring my own desk, and my two canaries, my typewriter, and a number of other little things.”
“We have a typewriter,” said Honor, somewhat appalled by this list. “Perhaps you could use it, and not bring your own.”
“You have a typewriter? Where did you get it, and whose is it?”
“It is Katherine’s.”