Bonny could say nothing. Her mind was in a ferment of eagerness to tell this new-old friend everything concerning herself and her dear ones. She felt that he would understand and be able to explain the “muddle” in which she found herself without her saying a word, and yet she wanted to leave nothing for him to guess at.
“Will you sit down here with me, Mr. Brook?”
“Certainly.”
They took the places Beatrice had designated, and as she looked up into the kindly, interested face all her trouble passed away. “You must have seen, sir, that we are very poor. When I looked at that basket of flowers I thought it was dreadful to have anything of such value wasted in that way, while my precious mother is toiling her life out to keep her family in simple necessaries. Then it came into my head that I might sell them. I never did such a thing before, though I would not have been ashamed to if— No, that isn’t quite honest. I don’t like to earn money that way, but I would be glad to earn it regularly, by any straight-forward, hard work, if I might be allowed.”
“How ‘allowed,’ my dear? Can you not work if you will?”
“No; that is just it. Mother thinks her geese are all swans, and must not swim in common mill-ponds. So she is just killing herself to keep Isabelle at the fashionable school where she studies art, in pay for her—Belle’s—looking after ‘primaries.’ That way it doesn’t cost anything for the instruction; but clothes do cost, such clothes as my sister must wear if she goes fitly among such rich pupils, cost a great deal for us. Roland is the happiest of all, maybe; because he does generally earn his own way. That is, what he earns has mostly paid the rent, only now he’s lost his place. I think it was the knowledge of that which upset Mother, last night. Her courage has been stretched so much that it is wearing out.”
“How did he lose his position? What was it?”
“He was some sort of a clerk in a wholesale dry-goods house. I suppose he quarrelled with his employer. He hated it. He said it would have seemed a great deal manlier to him to sell stoves or steam-engines, or something not so womanish as silks and velvets; but I fancy it would have made no difference. He was born to live out of doors. He’s a different boy when he happens to get an outside ‘job,’ once in a while.”
“How old is he?”
“Sixteen. Belle is one year older than he.”