"What makes you look so pale then?"
"I don't know. I guess the heat sort of overcame me."
"I shouldn't think it could have been very hot in that room when it
had been shut up so long," said Sophia.
She was evidently not satisfied, but then the grocer came to the
door and the matter dropped.
For the next hour the two women were very busy. They kept no
servant. When they had come into possession of this fine old place
by the death of their aunt it had seemed a doubtful blessing.
There was not a cent with which to pay for repairs and taxes and
insurance, except the twelve hundred dollars which they had
obtained from the sale of the little house in which they had been
born and lived all their lives. There had been a division in the
old Ackley family years before. One of the daughters had married
against her mother's wish and had been disinherited. She had
married a poor man by the name of Gill, and shared his humble lot
in sight of her former home and her sister and mother living in
prosperity, until she had borne three daughters; then she died,
worn out with overwork and worry.
The mother and the elder sister had been pitiless to the last.
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