Selfish as Jane was, she dearly loved the brother who had idolized her, and who in moments of great tenderness had always called her his little girl, remembering only that she was three years younger and in need of his protection.
Tears sprang to her eyes, but as the train was drawing in at the Edgemere station she only had time to say, “I’ll try. But, oh, it is so hard, so hard.”
Dan engaged a hack and after assisting his sister in, he sat beside her. Then, as they drove along the pleasant streets of the village that were shaded by wide spreading elms, the lad told her what changes had occurred in their home.
“Mrs. Beach, our housekeeper, and Nora, her assistant, have left, and our dear old grandmother has closed up her farm in Vermont and is staying with father. It has been his greatest comfort to have his mother with him. You always thought her ways so old-fashioned and farmerish, Jane, but for all that she is the sweetest kind of a little old lady and as brisk and capable as she was two years ago when we visited the farm.”
There was a slight curl to Jane’s lips, but she merely said: “I suppose I shall be expected to wash dishes now. We must be terribly poor if we couldn’t even keep Nora.”
“But we have one big blessing,” Dan said brightly, “the home, which was mother’s can not be taken from us, for it belongs to us children.”
Jane was not listening. She was trying to figure out something in her own mind. “Dan.” She turned toward him suddenly. “I can’t see why Dad lost his money, just because he did not want to be a partner in what he considered a dishonest oil deal. Explain it to me a little more clearly.”
“I didn’t at first,” her brother confessed, “fearing that it would not have your sympathy. Many poor people invested their entire savings in the oil deal, supposing that father’s firm could be relied upon to be absolutely honest. It is their money, much of it, which is making the rich men richer. Our father, knowing that many had invested their all because they trusted his personal integrity, has turned over his entire fortune to make up their losses, as far as it will go.” Dan was sorry he had to make this explanation, for he saw at once the hard expression returning to the eyes of his sister.
“If our father has greater consideration for the poor of New York than he has for his own children, you can not expect me to express much sympathy for him.”
“Dear girl, wouldn’t you rather have our father honest than rich?” The lad’s clear grey eyes looked at her searchingly.