Nothing whatever of interest presented itself for her amusement, but the mere fact that her husband was at home for the day seemed to breathe a pleasant sense of confusion and excitement that disqualified her for any connected occupation, in spite of the big pile of sewing up-stairs.
“Any letters, mother?”
Betty, the daughter of the house, who had come out in a white shirt-waist and a straw hat decked with last year’s blue corn-flowers, perched herself on the end of the piazza. “I’m going to the train to meet Sylvia, but it isn’t time yet. I’m so glad she’ll be here! I haven’t seen her for weeks.”
“There’s a letter from your Aunt Kitty,” said the mother. “She says your Uncle Tom is going to retire from business. They want to take Lutie abroad for change of air. She must be nearly eight years old now. She’s been so well lately they’re afraid of a reaction. I can’t quite make out where they’re going first; it looks like Himalaya. Oh, I see! It’s Edinburgh.”
“It might as well be Himalaya. Lutie’s never had anything but changes of air since she was born,” said Betty, crossly. “How some people do travel! They seem to have money for everything, while we—well, things can’t go on like this much longer! I’m going to work and earn something just as soon as I can now. And Jack says he wants to leave school and go in an office like Herbert. It’s too bad to leave so much on father. Don’t you think he has had more on his mind lately?”
“I’m afraid he has,” said Mrs. Harlow, with a sigh. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, something so horrid happened yesterday! I meant to keep it to myself, but I can’t.” Betty’s cheeks were red, her eyes were flashing. “I was at Mrs. Kennedy’s, with those books, and she asked if there was anything the matter with father, he had been looking so worn lately. She thought outsiders always noticed those things more quickly than the family.”
“The idea!” said Mrs. Harlow, indignantly.
“Then when I was in the hall I heard them talking; I couldn’t help it. They said—she and Mrs. Bradley—what a pity it was when a man didn’t get on well in business, and Mrs. Tower said she was always so sorry for the wife of an unsuccessful man; it must be so dreadful, if you had any ambition, to see your husband a failure. She said she never could really respect a man who showed himself deficient. I was so angry I could hardly walk home. I went up-stairs and cried. I wanted to burst right in and tell them how nobly father had behaved when that old Johnson absconded, and how he was trying to pay up all the back debts. But I knew it wasn’t any use——”
“Deficient!” Mrs. Harlow’s eyes glittered. “Your father’s brain—well, your father’s brain is far beyond most people’s. How he can make all those calculations the way he does——” She paused. Her own education dated back of the modern era. She was sound on the arithmetic of her butcher’s and grocer’s books, but beyond that all figures looked to her much like a drop of water seen through a microscope.