Brentwood by Grace Livingston Hill

under a specialist for a long time. They said I wouldn’t live if I didn’t have special treatment.”
    Betty’s eyes grew stormy with bitterness.
    “I used to wish sometimes they had let me die. I thought Mother didn’t love me at all, she mourned for you so much.”
    “Oh,
my dear
!” said Marjorie, coming close and putting her arms about her sister. “My dear! I think we are going to love each other a lot!”
    It was very still in the little dreary kitchen for a minute while the two sisters held each other close. Then Betty lifted her head.
    “I’m glad you’ve come, anyway!” she said. “You’ve been wonderful already. And I’m glad for Mother that she needn’t fret for what she did anymore. As soon as the doctor’s been here, I want to tell her. It will cure her just to know you are here. I know it will.”
    “Well, you’d better ask the doctor if it won’t excite her too much. There! Isn’t that the door? Perhaps he’s come! But it isn’t quite two o’clock!”
    Betty hurried to answer the knock, and Marjorie, lingering in the kitchen, saw through the crack of the door that it was the doctor. Betty took him upstairs at once, and Marjorie stood for a minute by the kitchen window looking out, staring at the minute frozen backyard and its dreary surroundings, wondering if her mother were very sick, wondering at herself that she cared so much already for a mother whom she had not yet seen. And this dear, fierce sister seemed already another self. And yet, they had lived such different lives! Marjorie felt almost ashamed of her own sheltered existence. It seemed terrible to think of her leisurely, butterfly life, when everything Betty had had seemed to have been gotten by the hardest. Well, perhaps not all the time. She had spoken as if there were times when they had nice things. But the last few months must have been simply terrible! If she had only known sooner! If she might only have saved her mother and father in their distress. Oh, suppose it should be too late for either of them? She recalled the ghastly look of her father as he stumbled into the hall a little while ago with that great burden in his arms. How white and desperate he looked. How his voice shook as he said he must get it warm for the mother! Her heart thrilled at the desperate love in his voice. It was so grand to have them love one another that way! Even through trials and adversity!
    Then she remembered the pantry, which she had been putting to rights, setting the supplies up in an orderly manner on the shelves. She might as well get it done before her sister got back. It was better to be doing something than just standing there waiting to know what the doctor said.
    She dampened a cloth she found, wiped off the shelves, and set about putting things away systematically. She stepped on a box to reach the top shelf, and there she discovered a handleless cracked cup with little tickets in it. Were they milk tickets or what? She wiped off the shelf, stepped down with the cup in her hand, and stood there examining the bits of paper. Each one had something written on it.
    “Six plain sterling spoons,” one said. “One Brussels carpet,” said another. “Three upholstered chairs.”
    Marjorie stared at them in dismay as she realized what these bits of paper must be. They were pawn tickets! She had never seen pawn tickets before. They represented the downfall of a home! A precious home where these her own flesh and blood had lived!
    She went on with the tickets. “One baby crib. Six dining room chairs.”
    And now she noticed there was a date on each one and a price. Was that all they got for each of those articles? How pitifully little in exchange for surrendering their household necessities! “Two double blankets!” And they had been cold! Her mother was threatened with pneumonia—perhaps more than threatened! She went on with the tickets. “One wrist watch. Fifty cents.”
    She stood studying them, trying to make a rough