He had been a “business man,” engaged in a very vague
business--promoting schemes and so on. He had spent money lavishly on
his adored daughters, and when he was at home, in the intervals between
mysterious trips, he liked to talk to them about their future, and ask
them what they wanted him to do for them. Poor devil! Evidently he
expected to live forever, for he had made no provision at all for them,
not even life insurance. There was not a penny.
Frances had been at college just a month when she was recalled. The
lawyer had gone out to break the news to her of her father’s death and
her own destitution, and it must be admitted that she had behaved very
badly. At first she refused absolutely to come home. She said she
_would_ go on, no matter what happened; she’d work her way through
college; lots of girls did. She had made up her mind to become a doctor,
and she wasn’t going to be stopped now, at the very start. The lawyer
pointed out that as this plan demanded quite eight years of study, she
might well spare a day or two now to attend to her poor sister. So she
consented, though she felt in her heart that it was the end. She went,
but she was markedly sullen.
Sober little Minnie, tired out with crying, reproved her.
“Can’t you think of something else beside yourself, Frankie?” she asked.
Frankie was abashed. She had an unbounded admiration for Minnie’s moral
worth; the very fact of her being smaller, plainer and stupider than she
was, was somehow proof of it. She really made an effort to look upon her
ambition as selfish and petty and to concentrate her eager and vigorous
mind solely on her father’s death.
Minnie had no ambition to give up. She supposed that in the course of
time she would marry, and that would suffice. She was not able to show
much sympathy for her sister’s intolerable disappointment.
“I know it’s hard to leave college and all that,” she said. “But after
all, Frankie, I don’t think you’d have stuck it out for eight years. You
wouldn’t have liked being a doctor, when the time came. Such a queer
thing for a girl.”
“Nonsense!” cried Frances, angrily, “you have the stupidest, most
antiquated ideas!”
“I’ll work my way through,” she went on, “I’ll be a waitress or
something. But I _won’t_ give up!”
Minnie began to cry.
“Please, Frankie, stay with me a little while,” she entreated. “I’m so
lonely!”
Who could refuse?