And I can't tell you what it would
mean to me to do that."
Galusha murmured something, something meant to be sympathetic. Miss
Phipps' evident distress and mental agitation moved him extraordinarily.
He wanted to say many things, reassuring things, but he could not at the
moment think of any. The best he could do was to stammer a hope that she
would not be obliged to sell the house.
She shook her head. "I'm afraid I shall," she said. "I don't see how
I can possibly keep it much longer. When father died he left me, so he
thought, with enough income to get along on. It wasn't much--fact is, it
was mighty little--but we could and did get along on it, Primmie and
I, without touchin' my principal. But then came the war and ever since
livin' costs have been goin' up and up and up. Now my income is the same
as it was, but what it will buy is less than half. It doesn't cost much
to live down here, but I'm afraid it costs more than I can afford. If I
begin to take away from my principal I'll have to keep on doin' it and
pretty soon that will be all gone. After that--well, I don't want to
look any further than that. I shouldn't starve, I presume likely; while
I've got hands I can work and I'd manage to keep alive, if that was all.
But it isn't all. I'd like to keep on livin' in my own home. And I can't
do that, Mr. Bangs. I can't do that, as things are now.
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