“I’m an able-bodied young man,” said he to Phœbe a little later, when the girl had returned from her errand, “and, instead of wasting my muscles and energies on athletic games, all these months, I should have been at work for the family.”
“You didn’t know, dear.”
“I ought to have known, Phœbe. That’s no excuse.”
“I’m sure that everything has happened for the best, Phil,” she replied, tenderly. “We’ve gone along, somehow, and I was anxious that we should both be able to complete our high school course. It’s so near the end, now, that we’d better stick it out.”
“Do you know that Auntie has been spending her savings to buy food for us?”
“Yes; but she doesn’t need the money just now and we will pay her back some time.”
“She says that you have given her money, too.”
“Just a trifle, Phil,” she replied, after a brief hesitation.
“Where did it come from, Phœbe?”
“I—I earned it.”