Soap,
candles, bacon, bread, coal, wood, in the quantities required by Mrs.
Welden, might, with the addition of rent, amount to the dizzying height
of eight or ten shillings.
"With careful extravagance," Betty mentally summed up, "I might spend
almost two dollars a week in surrounding her with a riot of luxury."
She made a list of the things, and added some extras as an idea of her
own. Life had not afforded her this kind of thing before, she realised.
She felt for the first time the joy of reckless extravagance, and
thrilled with the excitement of it.
"You need not think of Brexley Union any more," she said, when she,
having risen to go, stood at the cottage door with old Mrs. Welden.
"The things I have written down here shall be sent to you every Saturday
night. I will pay your rent."
"Miss--miss!" Mrs. Welden looked affrighted. "It's too much, miss. An'
coals eighteen pence a hundred!"
"Never mind," said her ladyship's sister, and the old woman, looking up
into her eyes, found there the colour Mount Dunstan had thought of as
being that of bluebells under water. "I think we can manage it, Mrs.
Welden. Keep yourself as warm as you like, and sometime I will come and
have a cup of tea with you and see if the tea is good.
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