One afternoon as she and Miss Barbara were passing along one of the side streets on their return from an attempt to see how the poorer people lived, Willy stopped in front of a blacksmith's shop where a man was shoeing a horse.
"There!" she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling with delight, "that's the first thing I've seen that reminds me of home!"
"It is nice, isn't it!" said gentle Miss Barbara.
CHAPTER XIII
MONEY HUNGER
During the latter part of their sojourn in the city, Willy went about a good deal with Miss Barbara because she thought this quiet, soft-spoken lady was not happy and did not take the interest in handsome and costly articles which was shown by her sister. She had been afraid that this noisy bustling place would be too much for Miss Barbara, and now she was sure she had been right.
The younger Miss Thorpedyke was unhappy, and with reason. For some months a little house in Boston which had been their principal source of income had not been rented. It needed repairs, and there was no money with which to repair it. The agent had written that some one might appear who would be willing to take it as it stood, but that this was doubtful, and the heart of Miss Barbara sank very low. She was the business woman of the family. She it was who had always balanced the income and the expenditures. This adjustment had now become very difficult indeed, and was only accomplished by adding a little debt to the weight on the income scale.
She had said nothing to her sister about this sad change in their affairs because she hoped against hope that soon they might have a tenant, and she knew that her sister Eleanor was a woman of such strict and punctilious honor that she would insist upon living upon plain bread, if their supply of ready money was insufficient to buy anything else. To see this sister insufficiently nourished was something which Miss Barbara could not endure, and so, sorely against her disposition and her conscience, she made some little debts; and these grew and grew until at last they weighed her down until she felt as if she must always look upon the earth and could never raise her head to the sky. And she was so plump, and so white, and gentle, and quiet, and peaceful looking that no one thought she had a care in the world until Willy Croup began to suspect in New York that something was the matter with her, but did not in the least attribute her friend's low spirits to the proper cause.
When Miss Barbara had favored so willingly and promptly the invitation of Mrs. Cliff, she had done so because she saw in the New York visit a temporary abolition of expense, and a consequent opportunity to lay up a little money by which she might be able to satisfy for a time one of her creditors who was beginning to suspect that she was not able to pay his bill, and was therefore pressing her very hard. Even while she had been in New York, this many-times rendered bill had been forwarded to her with an urgent request that it be settled.