“I’m so sorry,” she sighed. “I know I did idle my time today, Mother dear, but I can’t bear to have you—pay for it.”
“Nonsense, dear, I don’t mind. Really the exercise will do me good,” insisted Mrs. Brandon. “Just attend to the dishes and you won’t know these quarters presently. I’m glad we found the potatoes,” she said, but Nancy was now too serious to joke.
A call from the side porch checked their argument. It was Ruth calling to Nancy.
“Come along!” she shrilled through the screen door. “There’s going to be a band concert—”
“Oh, I can’t, Ruth,” Nancy called back. “I must do—”
“You must go, dear,” interrupted her mother.
At this Ruth came in to wait. Ted was already off—he did not need to be coaxed to give up his task, and when dishes were not being washed surely they could not be dried.
But Nancy felt guilty. In fact the band concert, novelty though it was, with firemen and a baseball team making up the “scrambled” programme, was not loud enough to still the voice of regret.
“I can’t bear to think of mother doing, now on this beautiful evening, what I should have done today,” she confided to Ruth, as they waited between numbers.
“I’ll help you tomorrow,” offered Ruth kindly. “And I won’t bring Vera. She’s rather critical—”