It was a wonderful relief to the harassed mother when she found a confidante to whom she could pour out all her anxieties.
Dr. Lambert was not a rich man; his practice was large, but many of his patients were poor, and he had heavy expenses. The hilly roads and long distances obliged him to keep two horses. He had sent both his sons to Oxford, thinking a good education would be their best inheritance, and this had obliged him to curtail domestic expenses. He was a careful man, too, who looked forward to the future, and thought it his duty to lay aside a yearly sum to make provision for his wife and children.
“I have only one son now, and Hatty will always be a care, poor child,” he said more than once.
So, though there was always a liberal table kept in the doctor’s house, it being Dr. Lambert’s theory that growing girls needed plenty of nourishing food, the young people were taught economy in every other matter. The girls dressed simply and made their own gowns. Carpets and furniture grew the worse for wear, and were not always replaced at once. Tom grumbled sometimes when one of his Oxford friends came to dinner. He and Christine used to bewail the shabby covers in the drawing-room.
“It is such a pretty room if it were only furbished off a bit,” Tom said once. “Why don’t you girls coax the governor to let you do it up?” Tom never used the word governor unless he was in a grumbling mood, for he knew how his father hated it.
“I don’t think father can afford anything this year, Tom,” Bessie returned, in her fearless way. “Why do you ask your grand friends if you think they will look down on us? We don’t pretend to be rich people. They will find the chairs very comfortable if they will condescend to sit on them, and the tables as strong as other people’s tables; and though the carpet is a little faded, there are no holes to trip your friends up.”
“Oh, shut up, Betty!” returned Tom, restored to good humor by her honest sarcasm. “Ferguson will come if I ask him. I think he is a bit taken with old Chrissy.” And so ended the argument.