"Hey, Mabe, let me in a second! Hurry up! Here's something for you!"
Mabel rushed to the door and let him in. He had a large box in his hand.
"Hello, sis!" he roared cheerfully. "Here's a box mother sent you. She is down in the car, but I told her not to come upstairs. I don't want her to get tired. She sent you some dinner. It's good, I can tell you! Helped to fix it myself. She thought it would be a change from the swell eats you must be buying yourself. Just notice the chicken salad. And she said for you to—but there is a note inside. Sorry you can't come! Strange girl going, and I don't like 'em. Nuisance to get acquainted. Why, what's wrong, Mabe?" he asked as he looked at her for the first time and noticed her tear stained face. "Gosh, what's wrong? Are you sick? Shall I call mother?" He put an awkward but loving arm around his sister, but she shoved him violently away.
"Nothing's wrong!" she jerked out, her lips trembling in spite of her. "Go along, and don't mind me!" She fairly pushed him toward the door and Frank, dazed and astonished, allowed himself to be hurried into the small hallway.
There he faced her. "Why don't you get some common sense into your head?" he asked savagely. "I think it's a crime your coming here and trying to live by yourself! I am ashamed to have the fellows know about it. They think it is awfully queer. Fellows like to look after their sisters. It isn't right! I don't care if you are a smart kid! You can be just as smart over home as you can here. You don't seem to think of mother at all. You don't care how she feels. She would skin me if she knew I was saying this to you, but I'll say you are the most selfish girl I ever knew and that's the truth! Well, go ahead! We don't care; we can rustle along without you!" He started for the stairs and flung this over his shoulder: "But I bet you will be sorry some day!"
He hurried out of sight as a shrill whistle sounded from the street where the Morrisson boys fretted in the waiting car.
Mabel picked up the box and carried it into the kitchen. Then for the third time that day she rushed into her bed-room, fell on the long-suffering bed and cried; cried tears of mingled rage and disappointment. She could not understand why Frank's ravings, as she called his outburst, should make her feel so strangely mean and small and in the wrong when she positively knew that she was on the right track. But you cannot live principally on cold boiled ham, olives and shredded wheat day in and out, you cannot leave a comfy, homey sort of home even for the luxury of a modern apartment without a pang of homesickness hitting you sooner or later, and Mabel was pierced with it. And you can't have good reason for tears three times in one morning without losing a little of your courage, at least for the time being. Mabel thought of the jolly party motoring along the level roads, all laughing over the sallies of the older Morrisson boy. She could almost see Claire Maslin in her lovely green motor coat and close hat set tight over the shining red hair.
Mabel burrowed her wet face deeper in the moist pillow. Her sobs rose.
"Oh, oh, I wish I was home!" she whispered finally, and then, like the martyr that she felt herself, she sat up, wiped her eyes, and wondered what was in the box her mother had sent over. Things to eat, Mabel reflected, as she opened parcel after parcel and found that a whole Sunday dinner was hers. She put it in the ice-box and wearily started to clear up the dusty and untidy rooms. The sink was full of dishes, and as soon as the water was hot in the boiler, she attacked the piles of plates and cereal dishes. By the time they were washed and dried and put away and the rooms swept and dusted, Mabel was too tired to think of getting herself any dinner, even though it was waiting for her in the box her mother had sent over. So she curled up in a corner of the divan and tried to read. She could not interest herself in her novel, and at last she sat staring moodily at the room, studying its complicated and fussy furnishings and comparing them with the simple, quiet arrangement of her mother's house. Mabel had had occasion to see a number of homes during the time she had worked with Miss Gere and it was dawning on Miss Mabel that there was a certain charm and beauty about her mother's simple and unpretentious arrangements that were sadly lacking in many of the most luxurious places. She had never thought of this until a woman who stood very high in the social world of Louisville had asked her if she was related to the Mrs. Brewster who was doing interior decorating. Mabel flushed with embarrassment and said in a small voice that Mrs. Brewster was her mother.
"How fortunate you are!" said the great lady. "Your mother is the most artistic person I have ever known. She is perfectly wonderful and will certainly make a fortune. I am trying to get her to go to New York where she can have a studio and command top prices. I don't see why she did not go into this years and years ago."