“There’s the door bell,” said her husband with an arresting hand, as he listened for the outer sounds.
“A package, sir. By the express. Twenty-five cents.”
“Have you the change, Jo? It’s some clothes I ordered myself for the Washington trip; I wanted to do you credit. Oh, don’t go upstairs for it.”
“I don’t mind,” said Mrs. Atwood. Change! She had nothing but change. Clothes! How easy it was for him to get them! Do her credit—in his glossy newness, while she was in that old black skirt, grown skimp and askew with wear, and that tight, impossible jacket! She charged up and down stairs in the vehemence of her emotion, filled with anger at her folly, and paid the man herself before reentering the library.
Her husband was untying the cords of the long pasteboard box with slow and patient fingers. He was a man who had never cut a string in his life. The children were standing by in what seemed unnecessary excitement, their faces all turned to her as she came toward them. Edward had lifted the cover of the box.
“What color are your clothes, Edward?” asked his wife. It was the first time that he had ever bought anything without consulting her.
“What color? Oh—brown,” said Mr. Atwood. He swooped her into a front place in the circle with his long arm. “Here, look and tell me what you think of this.”
“Edward!”
“Lined throughout with taffeta, gores on every frill—why, Jo! Bring your mother a chair, Josephine.”
Before the eyes of Mrs. Atwood lay the rich folds of a cloth skirt, surmounted by a jacket trimmed with fur.