“Why did you keep yourselves so poorly provided for?” she asked, a flush rising on her pale cheek. “I have heard your mother say that you were well supplied with money.”
“We were. It was one of my mother’s whims, if you choose to call it so. She was continually troubled with the feeling that some day she or I, or—more often, I think—father, might need all the money she could save; and I never combated the feeling, except when it intrenched too closely on her own needs. She seemed fairly haunted with the thought.”
“How absurd!” said Ruth, and her lip curled.
As for Susan, her lips opened, and then closed partly, and whatever she would have uttered remains in oblivion. She closed the damper energetically, and said:
“There, that is conquered! Now, what are we to have for dinner?”
“Why, I ordered roast lamb and its accompaniments,” Ruth said, recalling her minute directions given to the skillful cook (she knew how to order dinners,) “but, of course, that is out of the question.”
“Why, not at all, if you would like it. I know exactly how to roast lamb. But, then, who would eat it?”
“Why, Prof. Stevens and his friend are to dine with us. Oh, they must be sent word not to come! How can we send? Who is there to go?”
And Ruth, the complications of her situation pressing upon her in these minor details, looked utterly dismayed.
“Why, Judge Burnham will be our errand-boy—he said so. I met him as he came down-stairs, and he told me to say that he would call as soon as he had attended to father’s commission, and serve us in any way that we desired. We will have him first recall the invitation to our guests, and then we will send him to the ‘butcher’s, the baker’s, and the candlestick-maker’s.’ I shouldn’t be surprised if he proved a very useful member of society.”