Lena shut the door and came in without speaking. She flung her hat and
coat on the bed in the corner, where a forlorn counterpane showed by the
hollows and hills beneath that it had given up all attempt to play even.
The girl sat down listlessly with her hands in her lap.
"You've been gone a long time, Lena," said the mother in a delicately
querulous voice. "You're fortunate to be able to get out instead of
being cooped up in this little room the way I am." Mrs. Quincy coughed
with conscious pathos. "I sometimes wonder if you ever think of your
poor mother and how lonely she is most of the time. But I'd ought to be
used to people's always forgetting me."
"Much I have to come home to!" Lena answered. "You're about as cheerful
as barbed wire. But you can comfort yourself! I shan't be able to go
out at all much longer, any way."
"Why, what's the matter now?"
"Do you expect me to wear a felt hat all summer?" Lena asked sharply.
"I'm ashamed to be seen in that old thing and I should think you'd be
ashamed to be so stingy with me."
Her mother sighed and lapsed into the creaking comfort of her
rocking-chair.
"I ain't stingy," she said at last. "But if you had your way you'd spend
every last cent of the pension the very day it comes. I've got to look
out we don't starve. If you'd only make up your mind to work and earn a
little instead of livin' so pinched! I'm sure I'd work if I could. But
there! there ain't nothing for me to do but to set and suffer, and
nobody knows what I endure."
"I wasn't born to be a working girl," said Lena sullenly. "I've got the
blood of a lady if I haven't got the clothes of one."
"Well, when it comes to eating and drinking, blood don't count much.
Everybody's got the same appetite."
"No, everybody hasn't," retorted the girl. "I haven't any appetite for
canned baked-beans and liver."
"You eat them, anyway."
"I know it, worse luck!"
There was a tingling silence for a moment and then Lena spoke with
sudden energy.
"Mother, what can I do? I'm not one of those girls who can go ahead and
don't care. I haven't been brought up as they have. The only thing
you've taught me is that my father was a gentleman and that I am a
beauty. And what good does that do me?"
"Teachin' is respectable."
"I can't teach. I couldn't pass a teacher's examination to save my life.
I don't know how to do anything. And I won't sink below the level of
decent society. I'd starve first. Do you suppose I haven't thought it
all over a hundred times?"