Horatia smiled at him. “You want to get rid of me, don’t you, and you don’t care what I take. I’ll tell you what I am going to do. I’m going to town this morning to get a job. When I try that for a while I’ll decide whether I want to get married or not.”
“Get a job? What do you want a job for? You want to stay home with your aunt and me now.” Uncle George went so far as to put his paper down and repeat himself. “What do you want to do that for?”
“Earn money.”
He reached for his check book in all seriousness, but Horatia leaned over and put her hand on it.
“Truly I want to earn it. Everyone earns money nowadays, unless she is feeble-minded—or married. I don’t particularly want money just now anyway. I still have some of that last fifty. But I want to work. All the people I know are either married or going to be or working. I must get in some class. Of course I don’t mean to leave you. I’d be here nights, you see.”
“They’d probably find a position for you at the High School if you feel that way,” said Aunt Caroline, with the consciousness of being an important member of the community to whom even educational gateways were glad to open.
“Oh—teach,” said Horatia. “I don’t want to teach!”
Uncle George rose with heavy dignity.
“Well—let me know when you get broke.” He went out of the room with masculine indifference to these whims and in the knowledge that Horatia was only marking time in her own way until the inevitable happened. She’d marry. Of course she’d marry. And chuckling a little, he went down the street.
Aunt Caroline was more inquiring. She rose from the table, not being one to linger and keep the “help” waiting. But she followed her niece into the hall.