“Yes, I shall go back,” Helen replied, flushing.
“And you’ll be in that lovely home again?” Mrs. Burrell asked, giving Helen a sharp look.
“No. That has been leased already,” Helen replied, without flinching. “We shall take another house—a smaller one.”
Mrs. Burrell looked embarrassed. “When pa heard the news”—Mrs. Burrell impressively lowered her voice—“about the election, I mean, he just jumped up an’ down. You know he thinks Mr. Briggs ought to be the greatest lawyer in the country at this minute. He hopes he’ll keep out of politics after he finishes this term in Congress.”
Helen sighed. “But it’s hard, beginning all over again,” she said politely.
“Well, pa says,” Mrs. Burrell went on with a knowing look, “that if he takes his patent-cases he’ll have enough to keep him busy for a whole year, possibly two years. Ain’t that splendid? An’ it seemed kind of like Providence, the whole thing, for us. If you only would take the girls,” Mrs. Burrell pleaded.
“And what will you do?” Helen asked with a smile.
“Well, I’ll stay home, just where I belong, as father’s always sayin’. I guess I can be more comfortable there than anywhere else. We’ve got a new furnace, an’ we’ve had the sittin’-room fixed over, and it does seem a shame to shut up that big lovely house again. Why, how the sun does stream into our sittin’-room windows! They’re the old-fashioned kind, you know; they run way down to the floor. Father’ll have to be down in Washington part of the time, of course, an’ he can be comfortable at the hotel, especially if the girls are within reach. But I’m determined to stay near Carrie Cora.”
Helen Briggs was so startled by Mrs. Burrell’s proposition that the thought of it made her abstracted. As the old lady rattled on about her own affairs, she noticed Helen’s abstraction. Suddenly she stopped, and, folding her hands in her lap, she exclaimed: “I suppose you think I’m awful!”
Helen smiled and shook her head. “Why should I think you are awful, Mrs. Burrell?”