"And I think we ought to face facts, and that as soon as we can," said Phyllis, firmly. "We've lived so far in a dream. I've been thinking hard all the afternoon, and I've realized how cruel such cases as ours are. There was auntie, left with great wealth and no more business knowledge than a baby. And here are we, three girls with brains enough to be useful and enough money to have had a practical training in some direction, no more ready to meet emergencies than so many kittens. We couldn't compete with tenement-house girls, with all our advantages and their drawbacks."
"Phyllis is right," said Jessamy, with conviction. "Still, we must compete if we must."
"She is not right; I'm sure we can make lots of money with no special training," said Bab, indignantly. "Good gracious! There's 'our inheritance'! We never once thought of it!"
Six years before, an aunt of Mr. Wyndham, dying on her New Hampshire farm, had left each of her grand-nieces five thousand dollars. They had rather laughed at it, and never alluded to it save as "their inheritance"; yet now, recalled suddenly by Bab, it shone across their path like a ray of sunshine. Taken from the bank where it lay and reinvested at higher interest, it would materially help them in an hour when a thousand dollars had assumed new proportions.
"Mercy, yes! I quite forgot it," cried Jessamy, her face brightening. "At six per cent., what would that be a year?"
This was too great a mental problem for these would-be business women, whose arithmetic was that of most pupils of fashionable schools for girls. Bab sprang up for pencil and paper. "Nine hundred dollars!" she announced triumphantly. "That is quite an addition to our fortune, isn't it?"
"I suppose there isn't much good in making plans," said Jessamy. "We've got to trust Mr. Hurd to guide us. If we are no use, as Phyllis believes—and probably is right in believing—we had better live quite poorly for a while, and fit ourselves to do something well. I don't want to rush into any kind of half-good employment, if by self-denial, perhaps even hardship, at first, we might amount to something in the end."
"Hail Minerva!" cried Phyllis. "You'll be as thoroughbred a working girl, if you must, as you were fine lady; and that's what I love you for, Jasmine blossom."
"My poor, unfortunate children, are you sitting here in the dark?" said a voice. "Violet told me I should find you up-stairs. I saw that dreadful item in 'The Evening Post,' Is it true?"
"How do you do, Aunt Henrietta?" said Jessamy, rising, while Bab barely stifled a groan. "About the failure? Yes, I am afraid it is quite true."