"Answer me as if I were a child then, father, and tell me what we can do. But don't let us go on living as we are doing!"
"I thought I had done the very best thing possible for your mother, when I got her that place down at—I forget what's the name of the place."
"Brierley."
"I thought I had done the very best thing for her, when I settled her there. Now she is tired of it."
"But father, we cannot pay our way; and it worries her."
"She is always worrying about something or other. If it wasn't that, it would be something else. Any man may be straightened for cash now and then. It happens to everybody. It is nothing to make a fuss about."
"But, father, if I cannot pay the servants, they must be without cash too; and that is hard on poor people."
"Not half so hard as on people above them," replied her father hastily. "They have ways and means; and they don't have a tenth or a hundredth as many wants, anyhow."
"But those they have are wants of necessary things," urged Dolly.
"Well, what do you want me to do?" said Mr. Copley, with as much of harshness in his manner as ever could come out towards Dolly. "I cannot coin money for you, well as I would like to do it."