"Well," said Mrs. Grimes, "what shall we cut out? Would you give up the Baptist organ that we used to talk about?"
"Mary Jane, it is really surprising how you let such things as that stay in your mind. I considered that organ scheme abandoned long ago."
"Is it worth while, do you think, to do anything with the Methodist Church mortgage?"
"Yes, three thousand from forty thousand leaves us only thirty-seven thousand. Then, if we do it for the Methodists we shall have to do it for the Lutherans and the Presbyterians and swarms of churches all around the country. We can't make flesh of one and fowl of another. It will be safer to treat them all alike; and more just, too. I think we ought to try to be just with them, don't you, Mary Jane?"
"Ha! Yes! That is a thousand dollars, isn't it? It does seem but a trifle. But they have no children and they have themselves completely adjusted to it. And suppose we should raise it one year and die next year? He would feel worse than if he just went along in the old way. When a man is fully adjusted to a thing it is the part of prudence, it seems to me, just to let him alone."
"Oh, well, if you want to; but I propose that we don't make them the offer until next year or the year after. We shall have our matters arranged better by that time."
"What I said was, 'We are going to do something for you, Isaac'"
"Something! That commits us to nothing in particular. Was it your idea, Mary Jane, to make him an allowance?"
"There you cut into our insufficient income again. I don't see how we can afford it with all these expenses heaping up on us; really I don't."
"But we must give him something; I promised it."
"This is the end of September and I sha'nt want this straw hat that I have been wearing all summer. Suppose you give him that. A good straw hat is 'something.'"
"Let me explain. You recall that I told her I would try to make her comfortable, and when I found that our circumstances were going to be really straitened, I sent her my red flannel petticoat with my love, for I know she can be comfortable in that."
"So this afternoon when I came up from the city she got out of the train with me and I felt so half-ashamed of the gift that I pretended not to see her and hurried out to the carriage and drove quickly up the hill. She is afraid of horses, anyhow."