"It sounds rather solemn, Phyl," said Jessamy, "summoning us to a conclave like this. If we're going to do anything bad, don't tell us to-night."
Phyllis laughed. "Hand me that book, Bab, please," she said, and Bab wonderingly gave her a volume she had been reading that afternoon. Phyllis produced from it a sheet of paper covered with figures. "What we're going to do," she said, "or what I am going to do, is go to housekeeping."
There was a shout of laughter from her auditors, after a moment of surprised silence.
"You look like housekeeping just now," said Bab.
"I look less like boarding," said Phyllis, stoutly. "Ruth Wells is perfectly right; we should be far better off in a little home of our own—'be it ever so humble.' It takes strong—no, I mean tough people to get on without home comforts. You and Jessamy are getting utterly worn out, as nervous and fretted as you can be, and if you put half the strength it takes to live this way into healthy housework you would have everything you need and not be tired, still less cross."
"Phyllis is right!" exclaimed Tom. "It's a miserable way to live."
"Of course I'm right," said Phyllis; "only this isn't living. Now, I've been figuring," and she held up her sheet of paper. "It costs us fourteen hundred and fifty-six dollars a year to board as we are boarding now. Our washing is about three dollars a week—that is a hundred and fifty-six dollars a year—and that makes sixteen hundred and twelve dollars. Then, I don't know what you are spending besides for all these nourishing things auntie and I are having."
"I do," said Jessamy, with a half-humorous, half-genuine sigh.
"I am sure you do, and that it is awful," said Phyllis. "Well, now, listen; we are going to take a flat, wherever we can find it, and the best for the money, at forty dollars a month. We are going to have a woman come in two days in the week, to wash, iron, and sweep, at a dollar and a quarter a day, and that is a hundred and thirty dollars a year. And we are going to cook on gas, and spend about six dollars a month for our gas—Ruth said so—and that is seventy-two dollars more. And we're going to live plainly, but have nice, wholesome things to eat, and all we want, for six hundred a year—Ruth told me that too, and she knows—and that makes a total of thirteen hundred dollars, allowing a little margin. That's three hundred dollars less than we spend now; and who wouldn't rather live in her own dear little home, with all scratchy, maddening things and people shut out?"
Phyllis stopped, breathless, and the others had listened in so much the same condition that it was a moment before any one spoke. Then Bab leaped to her feet and ran over to hug Phyllis in rapture. "You dear, quiet, splendid old Phyllistine!" she cried. "It's just blissfully lovely. To think of you being the one to do it, when you're still so weak and forlorn!"