They were sitting out on the stoop, for the evening was a warm one.
"Oh, nothing very much," Mrs. Pickens answered, "chiefly joking about the dreadful food he gets and how glad he will be to come home."
"Men do care a lot about what they have to eat."
"They surely do. I suppose it's partly because after their work they're hungry, really hungry, and food tastes good to them. I work, too, but when I've been over this house, from top to bottom, and seen that Mary doesn't spoil everything she puts her hand to, I haven't the least desire for my dinner."
"You take it all very hard," Hertha said.
"Do I? Well, I suspect that's because I am incompetent, like Mary, and it makes me nervous and doubly anxious over everything."
"That's the way I feel in class."
Mrs. Pickens glanced anxiously at the young girl noting how fragile-looking she had grown in the past weeks.
"You seemed so well when you came here," she said, "and now you are certainly thin. I hope it isn't my incompetence that has brought the change about."
"You know it isn't," the girl answered.