Recollecting with tears how in earlier years
It had taken no pains with its sums.”
“Really, this is tiresome,” said Mrs. Wise; “I asked Dolly to make a plum-pudding, as Mary was so busy, and she has put currants and sugar and eggs and peel and suet, and no flour or bread-crumbs at all. Where is she, Phyl?”
“Four and four and sevenpence-halfpenny, four and elevenpence-halfpenny, minus threepence for stamps,” said Phyl, waving a financial pen to excuse immediate reply; “gone to the post, I think, mither dear; she’s mad after a letter, though I don’t know why. Oh, these wretched accounts won’t come right.”
“Here, I suppose I’ll have to lend a hand,” said Clif, from the lounge where he was stretched smoking and reading, for the afternoon was the pleasant, leisure one of Saturday.
He made a lazy way across the room to where [286] ]Phyl, housekeeper for the week, was wrestling with the accounts. She and Dolly were supposed to take the management of the house alternate weeks for necessary domestic education.
“Look,” said Phyl, “I have got everything down quite plainly,—just run your eye down that column, Clif, and see what you make.”
“Which column?” said Clif, taking a sheet covered with hieroglyphics and rough writing.
“Don’t tease,” Phyl said. “It’s quite plain, Clif; there, the middle one,—oh, it goes over that side too, and just add on those items in the left-hand corner, I had forgotten them before. I’m eight and ninepence short somehow.”
“How much did you start with?” Clif said, and made a really heroic effort to disentangle the confusion.