"Oh yes, I am as well as can be," said Douglas, trying to smooth her
wrinkled brow. How she did want to talk all the troubles over with her
father, but he of all persons must not be bothered. The old habit of
going to him with every worry was so strong that it was difficult to
keep from doing it now, but she bit her lips and held it in.
"I'll tell Lewis," she thought. "He will at least sympathize."
What was she to do about her mother and Helen? They seemed to have no
more gumption about money than the birds. Even then parcels were being
carried into the cabin from the cart that must have meant much money
spent in New York. Where did mother get it? The rent from the house in
town had been sent to Mrs. Carter for running expenses on shipboard and
hotels at the many places where they had stopped, but that must have
gone for the trip. Could she have charged the purchases in New York?
Poor Douglas! She had felt that the problem of making her sisters see
the necessity of economizing had been a great one, but she realized that
it was nothing to what she must face now. She felt that all her former
arguments had been in vain since Helen was dropping into her mother's
habit of thought and upholding that charming butterfly-like person in
all her schemes of extravagance. Lucy was sure to follow Helen's lead
and begin to demand clothes, treats, trips and what-not. Nan, dear
sensible, unselfish Nan, would be the only one who would sympathize with
her older sister in regard to the necessity of continuing the strict
economy they had practiced since early in May, when Dr. Wright had
declared that the only thing that would save their father's reason was
an immediate change, a long rest and complete cessation of all business
worries.
Nan's tastes were simple, but she had a passion for color and beautiful
textiles and sometimes indulged that taste in adorning her dainty little
person. As a rule, however, she was quite satisfied to behold the color
in a Persian rug or the wings of a butterfly. Beauty was to the girl
the most important thing in life whether it was of line, color, sound
or idea. She was perfectly happy with a good book and a comfortable
place in which to curl up. Her fault was laziness, a certain physical
inertia which her indulgent mother always attributed to her delicate
constitution; but the summer in the mountains with the enforced activity
had proven that the delicate constitution was due to the inertia and not
the inertia to the delicate constitution. Up to that time in her life
there had been no especial reason for exerting herself, but Nan was very
unselfish and when she realized that her sisters were one and all
busying themselves, she threw off her lazy habits as she would an ugly
robe, and many tasks at Week-End Camp fell to her share.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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