The Prodigal Girl by Grace Livingston Hill

else. I couldn’t lend you any money if I had it, and I haven’t got it. I’ve just made out checks for bills we owe, which takes all but a dollar or two of what I had in the bank, and I don’t know when your father will be able to give me any more. You don’t seem to understand that your father is financially ruined. Now, will you get that trunk?”
    “But Muth, I gotta have it! Right now, I gotta have it.”
    He looked at her pleadingly, his miserable eyes piercing her very soul. She felt as if the earth beneath her was reeling. What had Chris got into now? At another time, even the day before, if Chris had come to her with eyes of anguish and pleaded like this she would have turned heaven and earth to get the money for him. She would have covered it up and thrown some kind of a sop to her conscience for helping him evade his father’s law about borrowing. But her eyes had been opened, at least halfway. She began to suspect that there was something wrong, something more than just what Chris put on the surface.
    Downstairs the twins had come bursting into the house, home from school for lunch, and Jane’s voice could be heard outside calling merrily to her companions.
    “Oh bother!” said Chris. “Oh heck! Muth, I simply gotta have that money ‘fore night! I’m up ta my eyes. My honor’s at stake!”
    “Your honor?” said his father’s voice in the doorway behind him. “Your honor! Just what is it you call your honor, Chris?”
    Chris turned as red as a beet. His eyes drooped, and he wheeled and faced his parent like a thing at bay. When he lifted his glance to see how angry his father was, his eyes fell again as if they had been struck.
    Eleanor came forward anxiously, her eyes on her husband’s white face:
    “It’s nothing you need bother about, Chester,” she said. “It’s just a little matter between me and Chris. You needn’t worry. I’m just as firm as you are when it comes to things like this. You go and lie down and let me deal with this.”
    Chester’s eyes looked at her sadly, and then he turned back to the boy again, who had already brightened under his mother’s tone.
    “Just a little matter of two hundred dollars,” he said, as if it were a sword that he had held back from doing damage.
    “Chris, step into your room for a few minutes. I have something to say to you.”
    “Why, I can’t just now, Dad. I promised to get a trunk down for Muth,” said Chris with a show of haste. “She’s waiting for it.” “Very well,” said Chester. “I’ll wait.”
    Chris tugged the empty trunk down the attic stairs, with many a thump and a snort as if it were very heavy indeed, and then went back for the blankets while his father waited at the foot of the stairs courteously, until the task was completed.
    “Now, if you’re quite ready, Chris, we’ll step into your room,” said Chester.
    When the door closed behind the two, Eleanor Thornton sank back into her chair again and buried her face in her hands. She was so tired and frightened and worn out with various emotions that it seemed to her she must just sink down on the bed and cry.
    The clamor downstairs roused her. Jane was teasing the twins, or they were teasing Jane. It didn’t matter which. There was sound of breaking crockery and Hannah’s sharp voice remonstrating. This was no time for weeping. She had promised to be ready.
    She hurried downstairs and started the children to eating. Jane was clamoring that she must hurry back. They had a rehearsal of the play fifteen minutes before the afternoon session. She begged that she might have bread and butter and plum preserves and go right back, eating it on her way.
    “Sit down, Jane. You’re not to go back to school today. We’re going away!”
    “Going away?” screamed the twins in chorus. “Gee! Where? Can we go, too?”
    “Yes, we’re all going. Now eat your lunch. There isn’t time to talk. There’s a great deal to be done. Jane, sit down! Didn’t you hear