Mrs. Grey came in from the dining-room, which she had been brushing up, her dust-pan in one hand, her whisk-broom in the other, held straight out like parentheses, and said, without preliminary, out of her busy thoughts: "I don't see, dear girls, what we shall do this fall unless we have an extra hundred dollars. And still less do I see where we are to get even an extra five dollars. I have been lying awake nights contriving, but no suggestion comes. The coal money went to repair the roof, and bought the flour and other things—all necessities—but it must be made up, and I cannot see how. Besides, you need, each of you, warm coats this winter. I suppose Prue can wear Wythie's old one, but Wythie and Rob must have something."
Prue made a wry face, but Rob cried: "Sufficient to the season is the coating thereof, Mardy. Winter coats don't appeal to me strongly this sultry morning."
"Don't worry, Mardy; I am sure we can manage," said Wythie, lovingly. "But coal—well, I don't see how that can be dodged."
"No, nor paid for," sighed her mother. "Ah, well! We have lived for a good many years, and through several crises which in prospective looked impenetrable, so I suppose we shall find a way."
"Like Sentimental Tommy," added Rob. "I'm sure of it."
"Perhaps papa will get into business by that time," suggested Prue.
"And throw up the invention?" cried Rob, quickly. "That would be foolish!"
"I wish I could do something to help," said Oswyth, sadly. "I wonder if I ought not to go in town this fall, even if I could only get a place in a store."
"And earn but six dollars a week, out of which you would have to pay your board? We have gone over that many times, dearie, and decided you are more useful here, even if I could allow a young girl like you to go alone into a city boarding-house," said her mother. "You are such a help to me, daughter, that I could not spare you, and you must frame your wish another way."
Oswyth looked pensively at her dimpled hands as she held them up over the dish-pan and let the water drip off of each of her ten fingers.