“Why, certainly. Why shouldn’t I? It’s no kind of a thing for a young girl like her to have, especially in her position. She ought to be glad she has something I can use that will make up for what we do for her.”
“Better let her things alone, Nan. It might make trouble for us if she gets up the nerve to fight. You can’t tell how mother left things you know, till Judge Peterson gets well and we hear the will read.”
“What do you mean? Didn’t your mother leave everything to you, I should like to know?”
“Well, I can’t be sure about it yet. I suppose she did, but it’s just as well to know where we stand exactly before we make any offensive moves. You know mother said something that last night about Joyce always having a right to stay here, that it was her home. I didn’t think much of it at the time of course, and told her we would consider it our duty to look out for Joyce till she got married of course, but I’ve been thinking since, you can’t just tell, mother might have been trying to prepare me for some surprise the will is going to spring on us. You know mother had an overdeveloped conscience, and there was something about a trifling sum of money that Joyce’s father left that mother put into this house to make a small payment I think. I can’t just remember what it was but that would be just enough to make mother think she ought to give everything she owned to Joyce. I sha’n’t be surprised at almost anything after the way she made a fool of that girl. But anyhow, you let her alone till she gets good and ready to come in. She won’t dare stay out all night.”
“She might go to the neighbors and make a lot of talk about us,” suggested Nan, “She knows she’d have us in a hole if she did that.”
“She wouldn’t go to the neighbors, not if I know her at all. She wouldn’t think it was right. She has that kind of a conscience too. It’s lucky for us.”
“Well, suppose she doesn’t come in and wash the dishes tonight?”
“Let ’em go then till tomorrow. You’ve got dishes enough for breakfast haven’t you? Well, just leave everything where it is. Don’t even clear off the table. Just let her see that she’ll have it all to do when she gets over her tantrums, and you won’t find her cutting up again very soon.”
“I suppose she’ll have to come back tonight,” speculated Nan. “She has another examination tomorrow morning I think, and it would take an earthquake or something like that to keep her away from that.”
“Well, we’ll order an earthquake then. I don’t mean to have her finish that examination. If she happens to pass—and she likely would for those Radways have brains they say, that’s the trouble with them—she’ll make us all kinds of trouble wanting to teach instead of doing the work for you, and then we’d be up against it right away. It costs like the dickens to get a servant these days and there’s no sense in having an outsider around stealing your food and wearing your clothes. Don’t you worry about Joyce. Let her alone till she comes in. Lock the kitchen door so she’ll have to knock. Then I’ll let her in and give her such a dressing down as she’ll remember for a few years. Come on. Let’s turn out this diningroom light and go into the living room. Then she’ll know we’re not going to wash those dishes, and she’ll come in all the sooner.”