Justine was business-like.

"Seven dollars for two persons is the smallest sum we are allowed to
handle," she said promptly. "After that each additional person calls
for three dollars weekly in our minimum scale. Four or five dollars
a week per person, not including the maid, is the usual allowance."

"Mercy! Would that be twenty dollars for table alone?" the mistress
asked. "It is never that now, I think. Perhaps twice a week," she
said, turning to Alexandra, "your father gives me five dollars at
the breakfast table--"

"But, Mother, you telephone and charge at the market, and Lewis &
Sons, too, don't you?" Sandy asked.

"Well, yes, that's true. Yes, I suppose it comes to fully twenty-
five dollars a week, when you think of it. Yes, it probably comes to
more. But it never seems so much, somehow. Well, suppose we say
twenty-five--"

"Twenty-five, I'll tell Dad." Alexandra confirmed it briskly.

"I used to keep accounts, years ago," Mrs. Salisbury said
plaintively. "Your father--" and again she turned to her daughter,
as if to make this revelation of her private affairs less
distressing by so excluding the stranger. "Your father has always
been the most generous of men," she said; "he always gives me more
money if I need it, and I try to do the best I can." And a little
annoyed, in her weakness and helplessness by this business talk, she
lay back on her pillow, and closed her eyes.