“Yes,” said our father; “we shall keep the house.”
And as our enthusiasm was about to burst forth, he added:
“You owe it to your mother and also to your Aunt Bernardine.”
The latter, whose parchment cheeks would crimson for no reason but that some one spoke of her, while she kept neither her thoughts nor her property for herself, and daily robbed herself as a matter of course, stoutly refused all praise.
“How you talk, Michel! For nothing but a signature! You mustn’t mislead these children.”
Mother at once approved:
“She is right; it is your father who has saved us all.”
And lowering her voice she turned to him, murmuring—but I heard her:
“Is not all that I have, yours?”
I paid little heed, I acknowledge, to this debate. Of course the saving of the house was due solely to our father. How could our mother and Aunt Been have helped? It had been necessary to throw out the gentleman from Paris and the other invaders, as Ulysses on his return to Ithaca had thrown out the lovers. That was an exercise of strength which belonged only to a man. My notions of life were simple: the man governed, the woman’s sole charge was of domestic matters. That Aunt Deen had her rights, however diminished, in the building that “they” were trying to get away from us I could never have understood, any more than I could understand what a dowry was, and how the consent of the wife was necessary to enable the husband to dispose of property.