He appeared to be utterly devoid of ambition for his future, and Helen's suggestion possessed no real attraction for him. Painting had become a bore—the last thing he had really taken any interest in having been the portrait his wife had discovered in his studio just previous to the sailing of its original for Australia.
John Hungerford had never performed a day's manual labor in his life, and even though he had said he might ask his uncle for a position on his arrival in San Francisco, he had no relish for the prospect of buckling down to a humdrum routine of duties in Nathan Young's flourishing manufactory.
He sat chewing the cud of sullen discontent for some time, while considering the situation, and finally gave Helen a half-hearted promise to stick to his art, under a teacher, for another year. But his consent had been so reluctantly given, his manner was so indifferent, Helen felt that she had received very little encouragement to warrant that the future would show any better results than the past, and the outlook seemed rather dark to her.
CHAPTER V.
FLUCTUATING EXPERIENCES.
Upon their arrival in San Francisco, the Hungerfords took a small apartment in a quiet but good location, where Helen felt she could ask her friends, and they would not hesitate to come to see her.
This she tastefully fitted up with some of the simplest of her old-home furniture, which her father's lifelong friend and lawyer had carefully stored for her against her return. The more expensive pieces, with some massive, valuable silver, and choice bric-a-brac that Mr. Appleton had purchased to embellish the beautiful new residence which he had built a few years previous to his death—these extravagances having really been the beginning of his undoing—she sold, thus realizing several hundred dollars, which would go far, with careful management, toward tiding over the interval during which John was working to turn his paintings into money.
As yet Dorothy had never attended school, Helen having systematically taught her at home; but the child was bright and quick to learn, and was fully up to the standard with, if not in advance of, girls of her own age. She could speak French like a Parisian, and her mother had also given her excellent training in music.
Helen, thus far, had been very wise in her management of Dorothy. Profiting by the mistakes which she realized her own indulgent parents had made in rearing herself, as well as by the faults she had detected in her husband's character, she had determined that her daughter should not suffer in the future, along the same lines, for lack of careful discipline. At the same time, she by no means made her government irksome; indeed, it never seemed to the child that she was being governed, for the companionship between them was so close and tender that she fell naturally into her mother's way of thinking, and seldom rebelled against her authority, even though she was by no means devoid of spirit or a mind of her own.
Now, however, feeling that Dorothy needed a wider horizon, with different environment and training, as she pursued her education, her mother decided to put her into the public school.