She rises slowly, and drawing a bottle from her pocket, pours into the basin a few drops of brown liquid, stirs it again, and then removing the decoction from the fire, pours it into a battered cup, which she sets upon the floor at a distance from the stove.
If one may judge from Mamma’s abstinence, the liquor has been spoiled, for she does not taste it again.
Having thus completed her task, she turns toward one of the pallets, and seating herself thereon lifts her eyes toward Papa.
“What’s to be done with the girl?” she repeats. “That’s the question I’ve asked you often enough, and I never got an answer yet.”
Papa withdraws his gaze from her face, and fixes it once more upon the broken tumbler.
“She ain’t no good to us,” resumes Mamma, “and we can’t have her tied to us always.”
“Nor we can’t turn her adrift,” says Papa, significantly.
“No; we can’t turn her adrift,” replies Mamma. “We can’t afford to keep her, and we can’t afford to let her go.”
“Consequently—” says Papa.
And then they look at one another in silence.