Mother feels she can't afford to go."

Looking almost as depressed as her two friends, Betty now turned her
back deliberately on both girls to whisper in the older woman's ear.

"Oh, Mary, won't you, can't you; you know how happy it would make us."
But she knew her answer even before it was given and also understood
that Polly's pride would never have agreed to let her mother accept any
favor through her. Indeed, never in all the long years of their
friendship had Betty ever dared do half the things she longed to do for
her two friends, and indeed Mrs. Ashton often said that Betty accepted
far more than she was able to return, since she spent so much of her
time in Mrs. O'Neill's home.

"You are awfully foolish, Mary," Betty argued, "because if you should
really get ill--"

"That is just what I have been saying, Betty dear, for the past two
hours," Polly protested, forgetting the difference between herself and
her friend and edging close enough to the lounge to lay her head in, the
other girl's lap. "And the worst of it is, Mr. Wharton says mother can
have the holiday, he will pay her salary while she is away, and she only
won't go because she says she can't leave Mollie and me alone and can't
afford to pay any one to look after us. It is so foolish, when we are
old enough to be taking care of her! I suppose she wouldn't be afraid
to leave Mollie, it is just me! Sometimes it does not seem quite fair
to be born a twin, because see how things are put into Mollie divided,
all the good got and all the bad into me; so I suppose mother thinks I
would set the house on fire or run away and go on the stage as I
sometimes threaten, so soon as her back was turned. Oh, Mavourneen