“I’m astonished at you, Josephine. If the clothes hurt him—” but the girl had disappeared beyond hearing. Sam came from town that jubilant evening, in warm and roomy jacket and trousers, and, oh, weakness of woman! with a new football, besides. Mrs. Atwood carried with her a box of lead soldiers for Eddy, and a sweet little fluffy thing in neckwear for Josephine, such as she saw other girls displaying. After all, what was her own dress in comparison with the darling children’s happiness? She would get some cheap stuff and make it up herself. No one would know the difference.
“How about your suit, Jo?” asked her husband one evening as they sat around the fire. “Is it almost finished?”
“Not—exactly,” said Mrs. Atwood.
“The club goes to Washington on the fifteenth of the month, it was decided to-day. Nearly all the men are going to take their wives with them. I’m looking forward to showing off mine.”
“My mamma will look prettier than any of them,” said Eddy belligerently.
“And lots younger,” added Sam.
“Have you ordered the suit yet?” asked the voice of Josephine. Oh, how her mother dreaded it!
“No, I haven’t—yet,” she felt herself forced into saying.
“I don’t believe there is any money left for it,” pursued the pitiless one. “She spends it for other things, papa. She pays bills and doesn’t tell, because she hates to bother you. And she buys things for us. And she paid a subscription to the Orphan’s Home yesterday, and she got a new wash-boiler for Katy. And—”
“Hush, hush, Josephine,” said her father severely. “I found that receipted bill of Patrick’s lying around the other day, Jo. I should have paid you back at once. How much money have you left?”