"I hardly understand myself, though mother's lawyer tried to explain. It's something about indorsing notes and mortgages and things. Big boy as I am, I know no more about business than—you do."
"Thanks, truly. But I do know. I attended to the marketing yesterday when the wagon came. Cleena said that I did very well."
"Glad of it. You'll have a chance to exercise your talents in that line."
"But, Hal, mother will never let anybody take away our home. How could she? What would father do without his studio that he had built expressly after his own plan? or we without all this?" sweeping her arm about to indicate the cosiness of their own room.
"Mother can't help herself, dear. She was rich once, but she's desperately poor now."
"I knew there was trouble about money, of course. There never seems to be quite enough, but that's been so since I can remember. Why shouldn't we go on just as we have? What does this cousin of our mother's want of the place, anyway?"
"I don't know. I don't know him. I hate him unseen."
"So do I. Still, if he's a cousin, he should be fond of mother, and not bother."
"Amy, we're all a set of simpletons, I guess, as a family, and in relation to practical matters."