The poor woman sat down in her chair, and wept into her apron regardless
for once of the soap-suds that rolled down her red, wet arms.
"Is my grandmother living yet?" asked Elizabeth. She was sorry for this
grandmother, but did not know what to say. She was afraid to comfort her
lest she take it for yielding.
"Yes, they say she is," said Mrs. Brady, sitting up with a show of
interest. She was always ready for a bit of gossip. "Her husband's dead,
and her other son's dead, and she's all alone. She lives in a big house on
Rittenhouse Square. If she was any 'count, she'd ought to provide fer you.
I never thought about it. But I don't suppose it would be any use to try.
You might ask her. Perhaps she'd help you go to school. You've got a claim
on her. She ought to give you her son's share of his father's property,
though I've heard she disowned him when he married our Bess. You might fix
up in some of Lizzie's best things, and go up there and try. She might
give you some money."
"I don't want her money," said Elizabeth stiffly. "I guess there's work
somewhere in the world I can do without begging even of grandmothers. But
I think I ought to go and see her. She might want to know about father."
Mrs. Brady looked at her granddaughter wonderingly. This was a view of
things she had never taken.
"Well," said she resignedly, "go your own gait. I don't know where you'll
come up at. All I say is, ef you're going through the world with such high
and mighty fine notions, you'll have a hard time. You can't pick out roses
and cream and a bed of down every day. You have to put up with life as you
find it."
Elizabeth went to her room, the room she shared with Lizzie. She wanted to
get away from her grandmother's disapproval. It lay on her heart like
lead. Was there no refuge in the world? If grandmothers were not refuges,
where should one flee? The old lady in Chicago had understood; why had not
Grandmother Brady?
Then came the sweet old words, "Let not your heart be troubled." "In the
time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his
tabernacle shall he hide me." She knelt down by the bed and said "Our
Father." She was beginning to add some words of her own now. She had heard
them pray so in Christian Endeavor in the sentence prayers. She wished she
knew more about God, and His Book. She had had so little time to ask or
think about it. Life seemed all one rush for clothes and position.