"To a meeting," Deborah answered.
"Oh." And Edith began her soup. In the awkward pause that followed, twice Deborah started to speak to her sister, but checked herself, for at other dinners just like this she had made such dismal failures.
"By the way, Edith," she said, at last, "I've been thinking of all that furniture of yours which is lying in storage." Her sister looked up at her, startled.
"What about it?" she asked.
"There's so much of it you don't care for," Deborah answered quietly. "Why don't you let a part of it go? I mean the few pieces you've always disliked."
"For what purpose?"
"Why, it seems such a pity not to have Hannah back in the house. She would make things so much easier." Roger felt a glow of relief.
"A capital plan!" he declared at once.
"It would be," Edith corrected him, "if I hadn't already made other plans." And then in a brisk, breathless tone, "You see I've made up my mind," she said, "to sell not only part but all my furniture—very soon—and a few other belongings as well—and use the money to put George and Elizabeth and little Bob back in the schools where they belong."
"Mother!" gasped Elizabeth, and with a prolonged "Oh-h" of delight she ran around to her mother's chair.