“I wouldn’t feel so badly,” she said, after a time. “Maybe pa isn’t burned so badly as we think. Did the letter say he’d be home in the morning?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Gerhardt, recovering herself.
They talked more quietly from now on, and gradually, as the details were exhausted, a kind of dumb peace settled down upon the household.
“One of us ought to go to the train to meet him in the morning,” said Jennie to Bass. “I will. I guess Mrs. Bracebridge won’t mind.”
“No,” said Bass gloomily, “you mustn’t. I can go.”
He was sour at this new fling of fate, and he looked his feelings; he stalked off gloomily to his room and shut himself in. Jennie and her mother saw the others off to bed, and then sat out in the kitchen talking.
“I don’t see what’s to become of us now,” said Mrs. Gerhardt at last, completely overcome by the financial complications which this new calamity had brought about. She looked so weak and helpless that Jennie could hardly contain herself.
“Don’t worry, mamma dear,” she said, softly, a peculiar resolve coming into her heart. The world was wide. There was comfort and ease in it scattered by others with a lavish hand. Surely, surely misfortune could not press so sharply but that they could live!
She sat down with her mother, the difficulties of the future seeming to approach with audible and ghastly steps.
“What do you suppose will become of us now?” repeated her mother, who saw how her fanciful conception of this Cleveland home had crumbled before her eyes.