Minnie was thinking of the resource which Carrie’s board would add. It would pay the rent and would make the subject of expenditure a little less difficult to talk about with her husband. But if Carrie was going to think of running around in the beginning there would be a hitch somewhere. Unless Carrie submitted to a solemn round of industry and saw the need of hard work without longing for play, how was her coming to the city to profit them? These thoughts were not those of a cold, hard nature at all. They were the serious reflections of a mind which invariably adjusted itself, without much complaining, to such surroundings as its industry could make for it. At last she yielded enough to ask Hanson. It was a half-hearted procedure without a shade of desire on her part. “Carrie wants us to go to the theatre,” she said, looking in upon her husband. Hanson looked up from his paper, and they exchanged a mild look, which said as plainly as anything: “This isn’t what we expected.” “I don’t care to go,” he returned. “What does she want to see?” “H. R. Jacob’s,” said Minnie. He looked down at his paper and shook his head negatively. When Carrie saw how they looked upon her proposition, she gained a still clearer feeling of their way of life. It weighed on her, but took no definite form of opposition. “I think I’ll go down and stand at the foot of the stairs,” she said, after a time. Minnie made no objection to this, and Carrie put on her hat and went below. “Where has Carrie gone?” asked Hanson, coming back into the dining-room when he heard the door close. “She said she was going down to the foot of the stairs,” answered Minnie. “I guess she just wants to look out a while.” “She oughtn’t to be thinking about spending her money on theatres already, do you think?” he said. “She just feels a little curious, I guess,” ventured Minnie. “Everything is so new.” “I don’t know,” said Hanson, and went over to the baby, his forehead slightly wrinkled. He was thinking of a full career of vanity and wastefulness which a young girl might indulge in, and wondering how Carrie could contemplate such a course when she had so little, as yet, with which to do.