“The children . . .”
“Bread and milk don’t cost much. And a dish of soup and greens.”
“Shoes do.”
“They don’t mind patched shoes.”
“I do.”
“Vanity again!”
“Sure! . . . I’m not satisfied. With this, I mean. We need so many things. It’s important that they should have a nice place to grow up in.”
Fanny’s thoughts veered off. Raising her head, she smiled away in the direction of the window. “Stephen was so funny to-day,” she said.
Wilfred took a light from her smile, “How?” he asked eagerly.
“When I lifted him out of the tub this morning he yelled bloody murder as he always does, and I said: ‘Oh, for shame!’ To my astonishment he stopped in the middle of a yell, and looked at me in such a funny, resentful way. It was the first time I ever reached his consciousness with words.”