“Probably,” (she jabbed holes in the blotter with her pen) “but I need more. You see early in the game--when _Miss_ Parrish _deigned_ to notice me, I borrowed money of her, she was always pressing it upon me--one of her _sweet_ ways of impressing people with her _wealth importance_--” (I didn’t say anything, but I thought Viola was mean) “and I need to repay that, and then--my clothes are in _rags_,” (which was nonsense, for they weren’t) “and I always do ask father for extra money at Christmas time,” she continued, “because he softens then--or is in so deep that he thinks a little more won’t matter--anyway, since I always do ask him, there’s no reason for you to be so shocked--” “He’s your father,” I stated, “but I’ll tell _you_, I’d hate to send _my_ father a letter like that to get around Christmas time!” Viola shrugged her shoulders. Then she grew haughty. “As you say,” she said, “he _is_ my father, and it is _my_ affair--” “You asked me about it,” I put in sharply, “I was going by, and you called me in and said you were writing your father for money, and asked me what I thought would come of it--” “I meant how _much_ would come of it.” “Oh.” “He’s quite used to it, Jane,” she went on, and almost apologetically, “Mother has to ask him for extra money _all the time_. . . . We simply _struggle_, and _pinch_ at every point, but even then we can’t put up half the appearance that we should, and we never have what _every one_ around us has--and takes for granted. Did you hear Miss Meek say ‘I’ll wager it’s jolly slummish around the jail!’ yesterday when I was describing our breakfast room? _Horrid old thing!_” I didn’t say so, but Viola had made Miss Meek hazard this opinion about Ossining because she, Viola, had put on so many unnecessary and silly airs about her home. Miss Meek added, after her first remark, that of course she knew nothing whatsoever about it, since she never had visited such low places. The moment that followed had been strained--and funny! “It does seem,” Viola went on, after she had wiped her pen on her stocking, and then said something vigorous because she had forgotten that she wore a brown pair, “it does _seem_ as if Father might _try_ to do better. It makes it very hard for a girl of my type. . . . It doesn’t agree with me to accommodate to poverty, or to pinch and scrape as I have to _all the time_!” That was nonsense, but I didn’t say so, because with Leslie and Viola my opinion about money and things didn’t count. So I only stood there a minute, feeling a little sorry for Viola and very sorry for her father, and wondering why people felt so about that which Viola called “Appearance,” and then I decided I’d go to my room and finish a letter I’d started to Mother, who would, Miss Sheila had stated, write me herself, very soon. “Where are you going?” asked Viola after I had said I must hurry on. “My room,” I answered, as I turned the door knob. “How’d your lesson go?” “Pretty well.”