“I think I’ll go down and read for a while if you don’t mind,” said Mr. Townsend dryly.
Francis Townsend was always a punctilious man as to his toilette, but the next morning he made it a sort of continuous performance. Mrs. Townsend down-stairs, “redding up” the place after the children, and keeping his breakfast hot, felt her heart thump and sink alternately as she heard his footstep advance and retreat interminably on the floor above. Her coat and hat lay upon a chair, in furtherance of her morning journey to market, but no matter what she was doing her eyes turned, in spite of herself, to the place set for Francis at the end of the table, where there was a fringed napkin, a plate, a knife and fork, and a coffee-cup with the unusual addition of a little roll of greenbacks sticking up in it. Prepared as she was for some commotion she involuntarily clutched a chair back as she caught the sound of a quick and angry stride across the room above to the hall, and heard the tone of towering wrath:
“Polly!”
“Yes, Francis.”
“Did you cut off the leg of this pair of trousers?”
“Your breakfast’s in the oven,” said Mrs. Townsend glibly, “and the coffee’s on the stove. I’ve got to go to market.” She flung herself into her jacket and hat as she spoke, jabbing in the hatpins viciously. The triumph was exciting, but she didn’t know she was going to be quite so scared. She hesitated a moment, and then called back: “Good-bye, dearest!” as she closed the hall door and then ran down the steps into the street.
“Seventy-five cents for each dancing lesson, but if there are two in the family she makes a reduction.”
Mrs. Whymer sat rocking idly while she watched Mrs. Townsend basting seams on a dark piece of cloth, in her little sewing-room.
“I’ll see about it to-morrow when I’m in town,” said Mrs. Townsend.