"He's at home now," she went on, "preparing for another day without dinner; groans won't help him now; and this time there will be no supper—unless Mr. Goslett has another birthday."
"Why! good gracious, you will be starved."
"Better starve than to go home as we came. Besides, I shall write to the Queen when there's nothing left. When Nathaniel's money comes, which may be to-morrow, and may be next month, I shall give a month's rent to Mrs. Bormalack, and save the rest for one meal a day. Yes, as long as the money lasts, he shall eat meat—once a day—at noon. He's been pampered, like all the Canaan City folk; set up with turkey roast and turkey boiled, and ducks and beef every day, and buckwheat cakes and such. Oh! a change of diet would bring down his luxury and increase his pride."
Angela thought that starvation was a new way of developing pride of birth, but she did not say so. "Is there no way," she asked, "in which he can earn money?"
She shook her head.
"As a teacher he was generally allowed to be learned, but sleepy. In our city, however, the boys and girls didn't expect too much, and it's a sleepy place. In winter they sit round the stove and they go to sleep; in summer they sit in the shade and they go to sleep. It's the sleepiest place in the States. No, there's no kind o' way in which he can earn any money. And if there were, did you ever hear of a British peer working for his daily bread?"
"But you, Lady Davenant? Surely your ladyship would not mind—if the chance offered—if it were a thing kept secret—if not even your husband knew—would not object to earning something every week to find that square meal which your husband so naturally desires?"
Her ladyship held out her hands without a word.
Angela, in shameful contempt of political economy, placed in them the work which she had in her own, and whispered: