This remark turned on the widow's ready tears. "Very different indeed. Three in the kitchen, and I wouldn't like to say how many in the stable. And though I don't wish to repine against Providence, yet caps are so expensive. I can't think why, for they are only muslin; but Miss Crowe says she can't supply me with one that is really respectful under five rupees."
"It is all very well for you to talk, Mabel," insisted Maud from the rocking-chair; "you have a settlement of your own in prospect."
"So might you," retorted the other, "if you were wise, instead of wasting your time over men who mean nothing, like that handsome Captain Stanley."
"Yes!" yawned Mildred. "It is the stubby Majors with half-a-dozen motherless children growing up at home who marry."
Mabel flushed through her sallow skin and in her turn became tearful; for in truth her fiancé was but too accurately described in these unflattering terms. "It is not your part to jeer at me for sacrificing myself to the interests of you girls. In our unfortunate position it is our duty to avail ourselves of the chances left us, and not to go hankering after penniless probationers in the Post-Office."
Yet one more recruit for pocket-handkerchief drill rushed to the front, though more in anger than sorrow. "If you are alluding to Willie Allsop," retorted Mildred fiercely, "I dare say he will be as well off as your Major some day. At any rate I'm not going to perjure myself for money, like some people."
"Oh, girls, girls!" whimpered the widow plaintively, "don't quarrel and wake Charlie, for the doctor said he was to be kept quiet and not excited. Really, misfortunes come so fast, and things are so dear,--to say nothing of Parrish's Chemical Food for Charlie--that I don't know where to turn. If poor Dick had but lived! It was too bad of those nasty Afghans to kill the dear boy just as he was getting on, and being so generous to me. I always stood up for Dick; he had a warm heart, and people don't make their own tempers, you know."
Belle, who had been sitting silent at the window, clasping and unclasping her hands nervously, felt as if she must stifle. "I wish," she said in a low voice, "you would let me go on teaching as I did in the winter. Why should we mind, even if there are old friends here now? I am not ashamed of working."
Her remark had one good effect. It healed minor differences by the counter irritation of a general grievance, and the upshot of a combined and vigorous attack was that there had been quite enough disgrace in the family already, without Belle adding to it. Of course, had she been able to give lessons in music or singing, the suggestion might have been considered, since the flavour of art subdued the degradation; but the idea of teaching the children of the middle class to read and write was hopelessly vulgar. It was far more genteel to become a zenana-lady, since there the flavour of religion disguised the necessity. Belle, trying to possess her soul in patience by stitching away as if her life depended on it, found the task beyond her powers. "I think I'll go out," she said in a choked voice. "Oh, yes! I know it's raining, but the air will do me good; the house is so stuffy."
"It's the best we can afford now," retorted Maud.