“I don’t want any help, thank you,” said Aggie. “Arthur’s doing very well now. Very well, indeed.”
“Then,” said Susie, “why on earth do you break your back over that stitching, if there’s no need? That’s not my notion of economy.”
Susie was a kind-hearted woman, but eight years of solid comfort and prosperity had blunted her perceptions. Moreover, she had an earnestly practical mind, a mind for which material considerations outweighed every other.
“My dear Susie, your notion of economy would be the same as mine, if you had had seven children.”
“But I haven’t,” said Susie, sadly. She was humbled by the rebuff she had just received. “I only wish I had.”
Aggie looked up from her work with a remorseful tenderness in her tired eyes. She was sorry for poor Susie, who had lost her only one.
But Susie had already regretted her momentary weakness, and her pride was up. She was a primitive woman, and had always feared lest reproach should lie upon her among the mothers of many children. Besides, she had never forgotten that her John had loved Aggie first. Aggie, with her seven children, should not set her down as a woman slighted by her husband.
“I haven’t had the strength for it,” said she; and Aggie winced. “The doctor told John I mustn’t have more than the one. And I haven’t.”
Poor Aggie hardened her face before Susie’s eyes, for she felt that they were spying out and judging her. And Susie, seeing that set look, remembered how badly Aggie had once behaved to her John. Therefore she was tempted to extol him.
“But then,” said she, magnificently, “I have my husband.” (As if Aggie hadn’t hers!) “Nobody knows what John is but me. Do you know, there hasn’t been one unkind word passed between us, nor one cross look, ever since he married me eight years ago.”