“Thank you, mamma,” said Rosie. “I am well pleased with your decision, for I am just aching to question Marian as to all that has been bought to-day for the furnishing of Beechwood.”
“Then suppose you and Lulu and Grace come with me to my room,” proposed Marian. “I feel quite in the humor for talking, but must at the same time make myself neat for the tea-table.”
The invitation was promptly accepted, and Marian made her toilet with the others looking on and occasionally giving some little assistance.
“I suppose you bought beautiful things, Marian?” observed Rosie interrogatively.
“Oh, yes, I think so,” was the reply. “Cousin Ronald was, oh, so kind! Cousin Hugh also. They both seemed to want me to have everything to suit my taste, particularly in my room; and the things we chose are very pretty, I think, though of course not nearly so expensive as the furnishings here in this room or in yours and Grace’s, Lulu.”
“But why shouldn’t they be?” queried Lulu. “Cousin Ronald seems to have plenty of money and to think everything of you.”
“I really don’t know how much money he has,” returned Marian, “but I do know that there is Beechwood to be paid for, besides the ground for the factory, and the buildings that have to be put up, and I’m sure it must take heaps of money to do it all. So I am more than content to have pretty furnishings that do not cost nearly so much as what you have here.”
“And I’m sure that’s just the right way to feel about it,” said Rosie, “though I’m not at all sure it would have occurred to me to take all that into consideration.”
“Very likely it might not to me if I hadn’t had to struggle with poverty nearly all my life,” said Marian.
Then she went on to give a minute and, to the listening girls, interesting description of the purchases made. The talk at the tea-table that evening was first of Beechwood and a few repairs and alterations needed there, then about the building of the factory, the engagement of workmen and women, and the markets to be found for the textile fabrics to be made by them under Hugh’s direction and supervision.