“And the property Aunt Lena left me—how much does that bring in?”
Briggs lifted his shoulders. “Last year it brought in only two thousand. We might have got more out of it——”
“Please don’t reproach me about that. You know how much I want to keep it safe for the children!”
“Well, if that isn’t just like a woman!” Briggs retorted, laughing. “When she might have more for the children!”
“Or nothing at all,” Helen remarked, quietly.
Briggs drew his hands from his pockets and sat erect. “Helen,” he said, leaning toward his wife, “if you weren’t a woman you’d be a parson, like your father and your two younger brothers. It’s in your blood.”
Helen ignored the remark. “That makes seven thousand, doesn’t it?”
“But I never touch that money. I add it to the principal.”
“So we have only five thousand to live on!” Helen exclaimed, in a startled voice.
Her husband smiled with patient superiority. “No, no! Now you talk as if you were a millionaire’s daughter. How much did your father live on, I’d like to know?”