Douglas shook her head sadly. Helen was Helen and there was no making her over. She would have to learn her lesson herself and there was no teaching her.
“Dr. Wright says we must keep father out of the city this winter but we need not be in the dead country. We can get a little house on the edge of town so Nan and Lucy can go in to school. I think we can get along on the rent from the house if you and I can make something besides.”
When the question of where they were to live for the winter was broached to Mrs. Carter, she was taken quite ill and had to stay in bed a whole day.
“No one considers me at all,” she whimpered to Nan, who had brought her a tray with some tea and toast for her luncheon. “Just because you and Douglas like the country you think it is all right. I am sure I shall die in some nasty little frame cottage in the suburbs. It is ridiculous that we cannot turn those wretched people out of my house and let me go back and live in it again.”
“But, mumsy,” soothed Nan, “we are going to make you very comfortable and we will find a pretty house and maybe it will be brick.”
“But to dump me down in the suburbs when I have had to be away from society for all these months as it is! I am sure if I could talk it over with your father he would agree with me—but you girls even coerce me in what I shall and shall not say to my own husband. I do not intend to submit to it any longer.”
“Oh, mother, please—please don’t tell father. Dr. Wright says——”
“Don’t tell me what Dr. Wright says! I am bored to death with what he says. I know he has been kind but I can’t see that our affairs must be indefinitely directed by him. I will sleep a little now if you will let me be quiet.”