"Then you can't say Friday's always unlucky," commented Grandmother. "It may have been bad for us but it was good for her. Supposin' that butterfly had had her to bring up—what'd she have been by now?"
"She resembles her ma some," answered Matilda, irrelevantly; "at least she would if she was pretty. She's got the same look about her, somehow."
"I never thought her ma was pretty. It was always a mystery to me what Frank saw in her."
"Come to supper," called Rosemary, abruptly. She was unable to bear more.
The meal was unexpectedly enlivened by Grandmother's discovery of a well-soaked milk ticket in the pitcher. From the weekly issue of The Household Guardian, which had reached her that day, she had absorbed a vast amount of knowledge pertaining to the manners and customs of germs, and began to fear for her life. At first, it was thought to be Rosemary's fault, but upon recalling that for many years the ticket had always been left in the pitcher, the blame was shifted to the hapless milkman.
At the Close of the Day
Some discussion ensued as to what should be said to the milkman and who should say it, but Rosemary observed, with more or less reason, that if his attention was called to the error, he might want another ticket. At length it was decided to say nothing, and Grandmother personally assumed charge of the ticket, putting it to dry between newspapers in the hope of using it again.
After supper, Rosemary washed the dishes, set the table for breakfast, and sat quietly, with her hands folded, until the others were ready to go to bed. She wrapped a hot brick in red flannel for each of them, put out the lamp, and followed them up-stairs. Rejoicing in the shelter afforded by a closed door, she sat in the dark, shivering a little, until sounds suggestive of deep slumber came from the two rooms beyond.
Then she lighted the two candles that Alden Marsh had given her, and hurriedly undressed, pausing only to make a wry face at her unbleached muslin nightgown, entirely without trimming. She brushed her hair with a worn brush, braided it, tied it with a bit of shoestring, and climbed into bed.
After assuring herself of the best light possible, she unwrapped the little red book he had given her a few days before, and began to read, eagerly, one of the two wonderful sonnet sequences of which the English language boasts: