“But there isn’t any estate,” objected Douglas, and Helen could not help a little gleam of satisfaction creeping into her eyes. She was not the only person who felt that Dr. Wright had been, to say the least, presumptuous.
“No estate! Why I thought Robert Carter was very well off. What has he done with his money, please?”
“We have just lived on it. We didn’t know,” sadly from Douglas.
“I never heard of such extravagance. ‘A fool and his money are soon parted.’”
“We have got just exactly eighty-three dollars and fifty-nine cents in the bank. Father owns this house and a side of a mountain in Albemarle, and that is all.”
“Mercy, child! I can’t believe it.”
“We have got to live somehow, and I believe we all feel that it would be very bad for Father to come back and find debts to be paid off. He has such a horror of debt that he has always paid the bills each month. What do you think we could do—something to make money, I mean? Father was in such a nervous state we could not consult him, and Mother, poor little Mother, of course she does not understand business at all.”
“Humph! I should say not! And what do you chits of girls know about it, either? Are you meaning to stay alone, all un-chaperoned, until this Yankee doctor thinks it is time to let your parents return? Just as like as not there is nothing the matter with your father but a touch of malaria.”
“We had not thought of a chaperone, as we have been so miserable about Father we could not think of ourselves. If we are going to make a living, we won’t need chaperones, anyhow.”