The, for once, dumb trio found simultaneous voice at this.
“Mamma! would that be right? Would it not be an imposition?”
“It is his own proposal. We talked it all over last night after he came home, and again this morning. I need not tell you that he is the best, most indulgent father that ever loved and spoiled three loving daughters. I had some difficulty in persuading him to let me try the experiment. The tears stood in his dear eyes, while he debated the pros and cons of the case.
“‘My bonnie bairns!’ he said. ‘If I could, I would be their shield always. They should never dream of privation; never ink or prick their pretty fingers except for amusement, if I were sure of ten years more of life and prosperity.’”
She stopped to steady her voice.
Imogen was crying outright; Emma’s gray eyes were cloudy. Blanche broke forth, half-laughing, half-sobbing:—
“The angelic old papa! isn’t he a born seraph? I would peddle rags with a lean mule, and a string of bells across the cart, to save him an hour’s anxiety. I wish he would wear French hats—all flowers and moonshine! And have four every season. Would not I furnish them for nothing, kisses thrown into the bargain?”
The others had to laugh at the vision of papa’s six feet of stature, broad shoulders, strong features, and iron-gray hair crowned with a fancy hat of the prevailing mode. Mrs. Hiller went on:—
“‘But,’ he added, ‘I will not, while I can take care of them, derive one cent’s profit from their work. There is no surer way of learning how to take care of money than having money to manage. I will furnish each of the pusses with a bank-book. She shall make out quarterly bills against you, or me; deposit her gains in her own name, and invest as she will. Her earnings may thus be the nest-egg of a neat little fortune. I can’t imagine—I won’t believe that they will ever become mercenary. But I am sick of the limpness and insipidity and general know-nothingness of the women with whom I have business dealings. ‘My dear husband never suffered me to be annoyed by these matters,’ says the widow, her handkerchief to her eyes. And—‘If my poor papa had foreseen this day, it would have embittered his life!’ sobs the interesting spinster of forty-seven, who ‘hasn’t an idea how to make out a checque,’ and really doesn’t know the difference between real and personal estate!”
“The Payne girls!” uttered Imogen and Blanche, in wicked glee. “Mamma, you ‘did’ Arethusa to the life.”