Fifty dollars more was added next year to the house-rent—and yet they did not move. Lucy looked embarrassed when she was asked “if they meant to remain,” and “why they did not move up town?” and Tom was almost rude when similar inquiries were made of him. That, indeed, was not the unusual thing now that it had once been. Tom was growing cross. He was harassed and fretted, and often answered hastily where he had no right to do so; particularly to his sweet, pretty little wife, who, to do him justice, he did love with all his heart and soul—but that was no excuse for being cross to her, as he was sometimes, when she handed him a bill.
“Why, Lucy, what is this? Five dollars for ice! I’ve paid that bill before.”
“No, dear, you have not.”
“I gave you the money, I am sure. Do you take receipts? for if you don’t, they always send the bill a second time.” No one but Tom would ever have thought of any body’s sending him a bill a second time. If they got paid once, they did very well. “And I can’t afford to be paying bills two or three times over.”
“Indeed, dear, I always take receipts—and this I know has not been paid. It has been sent in two or three times, but it has not been paid, I know. Here’s the baker’s account just sent in,” continued Lucy, who thought while she was in for a disagreeable subject, she might as well go through with it all.
“Twenty dollars for bread!” exclaimed he, eyeing the sum total; “why it must be a mistake.”
“No,” she said, “it is correct.”
“Then, Lucy,” said he, “there must be great waste somewhere; and,” he added angrily, “I can’t afford it. Twenty dollars for bread! It’s enormous.”
“It has been running a good while,” said Lucy, meekly. “See, it begins in June.”
“Well, well, no matter when it begins,” said he, impatiently, “I can’t pay it now, that’s all.”