"Well, didn't you want them to begin? I will stay home and help you get ready. Our prosperity couldn't begin without the troubles, if you mean boarders, and boarders mean servants. I shall be very glad to be afflicted with a cook for a while myself."
"Yes; but we don't know anything about these people, or whether they will be able to pay us. Did she talk as if they were well off?"
"She talked as if they were poor; poo' she called it."
"Yes, how queerly she pronounced," said Mrs. Leighton. "Well, I ought to have told them that I required the first week in advance."
"Mamma! If that's the way you're going to act!"
"Oh, of course, I couldn't, after he wouldn't let her bargain for the rooms. I didn't like that."
"I did. And you can see that they were perfect ladies; or at least one of them." Alma laughed at herself, but her mother did not notice.
"Their being ladies won't help if they've got no money. It'll make it all the worse."
"Very well, then; we have no money, either. We're a match for them any day there. We can show them that two can play at that game."