Molly opened her eyes in amazement at this announcement. "Papa has only been dead six months!" she exclaimed.
"Yes, but Mamma would like a gray dressing-gown trimmed with black ribbon and black lace. You see it is not as though she would go out-of-doors in it, or that anyone would see her, so that it will not matter in the least, and it will please her to have a little bit of colour, you see."
"How much will it cost?" asked Arthur.
"Not more than ten pounds," answered Annie, as though such an amount as that was not to be considered beside her mother's whim to have a new dress.
"And if you send to order this, how is it to be paid for?" asked Arthur.
"Oh, the people won't mind waiting in the least!"
Arthur looked greatly disappointed. "I suppose the Murrays are born swindlers," he said bitterly. And without another word, he went out of the room, took his candle, and went up to bed.
"Oh, Annie, it was a shame of you to talk like that to poor Arthur, when he is trying so hard to set things right. Of course he is quite disheartened, and no wonder, poor boy!"
"But what are we to do? He must learn that we want dresses and must have them somehow. Mamma has always been well dressed, though she sits in her own room."
"Well, Mamma cannot have a new dress just now, and I shall tell her so to-morrow. Of course, what Mr. Andrews and Arthur are trying to do is worth twenty new dresses. If I am only a girl, I have sense enough to know that, and if you won't help him, I will."