her gazing
at the new purchase Janet was uncomfortably aware of drops that ran a
little way in the furrows of Hannah's cheeks, stopped, and ran on again.
She seized her apron and clapped it to her face.

"You hadn't ought to be made to do it!" she sobbed.

And Janet was suddenly impelled to commit an act rare in their
intercourse. She kissed her, swiftly, on the cheek, and fled from the
room....

Supper was an ordeal. Janet did not relish her enthronement as a
heroine, she deplored and even resented her mother's attitude toward her
father, which puzzled her; for the studied cruelty of it seemed to belie
her affection for him. Every act and gesture and speech of Hannah's
took on the complexion of an invidious reference to her reliability as
compared with Edward's worthlessness as a provider; and she contrived
in some sort to make the meal a sacrament in commemoration of her elder
daughter's act.

"I guess you notice the difference in that pork," she would exclaim, and
when he praised it and attributed its excellence to Janet's gift Hannah
observed: "As long as you ain't got a son, you're lucky to have a
daughter like her!"

Janet squirmed. Her father's acceptance of his comparative worthlessness
was so abject that her pity was transferred to him, though she scorned
him, as on former occasions, for the self-depreciation that made him
powerless before her mother's reproaches. After the meal was over he
sat listlessly on the sofa, like a visitor whose presence is endured,
pathetically refraining from that occupation in which his soul found
refreshment and peace, the compilation of the Bumpus genealogy. That
evening the papers remained under the lid of the desk in the corner,
untouched.

What troubled Janet above all, however, was the attitude of Lise, who
also came in for her share of implied reproach. Of late Lise had become
an increased source of anxiety to Hannah, who was unwisely resolved to
make this occasion an object lesson. And though parental tenderness had
often moved her to excuse and defend Lise for an increasing remissness
in failing to contribute to the household expenses, she was now quite
relentless in her efforts to wring from Lise an acknowledgment of the
nobility of her sister's act, of qualities in Janet that she, Lise,
might do well to cultivate. Lise was equally determined to withhold any
such acknowledgment; in her face grew that familiar mutinous look that
Hannah invariably failed to recogniz