“Probably she would not care to,” remarked Julie, intensely amused at this taking up of the cudgels in Landor’s behalf; and then, thinking it best—this wise Julie!—not to prolong the jest, she said, “It is probably his father. He is old, you know, and Mr. Landor may hesitate to go off and leave him. I am glad he talked with you, dear, about anything he had so much at heart, for it shows how much he appreciates and values your opinion and you probably talked to him twice as well as I could, you funny little baby owl!”
Hester’s reply to this was to fling herself down on the foot of the bed and cry in a muffled tone, “I’m so tired—so dead tired! I didn’t realize it until I kept so still coming home and then I ached so I wanted to scream while Mr. Landor was talking to me!”
Julie’s arms were around her in a moment. “The strain has been too much, dear. You cannot stand the work and play too,—it is no use trying.”
“But I like to play,” cried Hester rebelliously, “and sometimes I feel so wicked—as if I couldn’t keep up my end another minute, and then I want to run away—all of us run away—to have ‘The Hustle’ again and go racing out of all this, and then,”—her voice broke,—“Oh! then Julie darling, I am so ashamed of such thoughts—so humiliated to think I can’t be as patient as you are!”
“I know, dear,” stroking her sister’s hair softly, “and I am not patient—not half as patient as I try to be—only I hold myself with a fearfully tight rein for fear I’ll go all to pieces. We are both pretty much knocked out now, dear, with the strain of the winter, the newness of things and—”
“Not to mention being half fed,” inserted Hester.
“But we have paid all our expenses as we’ve gone along and kept out of debt even if we have half starved to do it. You see, dear, up to now,” said Julie, the accountant, “we have had to put such a large amount of our earnings back into the business for all sorts of things.”
“Imagine what cousin Nancy would say if she knew how we wriggled along on almost nothing, you and I!”
“She’d say we were fools not to have accounts with the butcher, the baker and candlestick-maker but we do not agree with her, and Daddy, bless his heart! does not want for anything. Thank heaven, we’ve accomplished that much! Isn’t it a mercy, dear, that he does not realize things? It would break his heart!”
“Oh! yes, but how I do long to have our darling old Daddy back!”