Almost immediately after the funeral Harriet and her family moved out from Charleston to live at Berkeley Hill with Margaret, retaining the two old negroes who for so many years had done all the work that was done on the estate.
"We couldn't rent the place without spending thousands in repairing it, so we'll have to live on it ourselves."
The sentiment that Margaret and Harriet cherished for this old homestead which had for so long been occupied by some branch of the family was so strong as to preclude any idea of selling the place.
It was Margaret's wish, at this time, to go away from Berkeley Hill and earn her own living, as much for the adventure of it as because she thought she ought not to be a burden to Walter. But the Southerner's principle that a woman may with decency work for her living only when bereft of all near male kin to earn it for her led Walter to protest earnestly against her leaving their joint home.
Harriet, too, was at first opposed to it.
"You could be such a help and comfort to me, Margaret, dear, if you'd stay. Henry and Chloe are too old and have too much work to do on this huge place to help me with the children; and out here I can't do as I did in Charleston—get in some one to stay with the babies whenever I want to go anywhere. So you see how tied down I'd be. But with you here, I should always feel so comfortable about the children whenever I had to be away from them."
"But for what it would cost Walter to support me, Harriet, dear, you could keep a nurse for the children."
"And spend half my time at the Employment Agency. A servant would leave as soon as she discovered how lonesome it is out here, a half mile from the trolley line. It's well Henry and Chloe are too attached to the place to leave it."
"So the advantage of having me rather than a child's nurse is that I'd be a fixture?" Margaret asked, hiding with a smile her inclination to weep at this only reason Harriet had to urge for her remaining with her.
"Of course you'll be a fixture," Harriet answered affectionately. "Walter and I are only too glad to give you a home."