But it was not really
her fault, she still thought.
It was a mournful experience, this, of having a grown man--the one male
of the family--sitting listlessly about the house of a morning and going
forth aimlessly at irregular times, only to return before he should be
expected. The habit of her life, as it had been the habit of Horatio's,
was to have the male sally forth early from the domestic hearth and
leave it free to the women of the family for the entire day.... Usually
optimistic to a fault, with a profound conviction that things must come
right of themselves somehow, Milly began to doubt and see dark visions
of the family future. What if her father should be unable to find
another place--any sort of work--and should come to hang about the house
always, getting seedier and sadder, to be supported by her feeble
efforts? Milly refused to contemplate the picture.
One day her grandmother asked money from Milly. The old lady was a grim
little nemesis for the girl these days,--a living embodiment of "See
what you have done," though never for a moment would Milly admit that
she was responsible for the accumulation of disaster. It should be said
in behalf of Grandma Ridge that now the blow of fate had fallen, which
she had so persistently predicted for four long years, she set her lips
in grim puritan silence and did that which must be done without
reproach.
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