It's only
that we decided the old house was too expensive for us to run just for
ourselves, so we got a nice old place in the country and fixed it up."
"You decided--you got a place in the country? Do you mean to say that
you poor, innocent children have had to manage things like _that_?"
"We didn't want you to bother. _Please_ don't worry, now." Ken looked
anxiously across the table at his mother, as though he rather expected
her to go off in a collapse again.
"Nonsense, Ken, I'm perfectly all right! But--but--oh, please begin at
the beginning and unravel all this."
"Wait till we get on the train," Ken said. "I want to arrange my topics.
I didn't mean to spring it on you this way, at all, Mother. I wish Phil
had been doing this job."
But Ken's topics didn't stay arranged. As the train rumbled on toward
Bayside, the tale was drawn from him piecemeal; what he tried to
conceal, his mother soon enough discovered by a little questioning. Her
son dissimulated very poorly, she found to her amusement. And, after
all, she must know the whole, sooner or later. It was only his wish to
spare her any sudden shock which made him hold back now.
"And you mean to tell me that you poor dears have been scraping along on
next to nothing, while selfish Mother has been spending the remnant of
the fortune at Hilltop?"
"Oh, pshaw, Mother!" Ken muttered, "there was plenty. And look at you,
all nice and well for us.
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