For a month the two poor little heroines struggled on in a daily round of petty annoyances that were not petty when one considered what they involved.
"We're getting awful, Jessamy," said Bab, tearfully, one night. "We're getting sharp-tempered, nervous, hard, and where shall we end?"
"Come in here, girls," called Phyllis's voice, still tremulous, from the next room. "Bring Tom."
Tom and Nixie had resumed their old quarters since the nurse had gone, and they both came as readily as they always did when Jessamy and Barbara called them.
"I heard what you said, Babbie," said Phyllis, motioning Tom to the seat of honor, and making Nixie welcome by her side in the big chair. "I heard you say you were getting horrid, and I've been seeing what a hard time you were having, and I want to tell you what we're going to do."
"It sounds rather solemn, Phyl," said Jessamy, "summoning us to a conclave like this. If we're going to do anything bad, don't tell us to-night."
Phyllis laughed. "Hand me that book, Bab, please," she said, and Bab wonderingly gave her a volume she had been reading that afternoon. Phyllis produced from it a sheet of paper covered with figures. "What we're going to do," she said, "or what I am going to do, is go to housekeeping."
There was a shout of laughter from her auditors, after a moment of surprised silence.
"You look like housekeeping just now," said Bab.
"I look less like boarding," said Phyllis, stoutly. "Ruth Wells is perfectly right; we should be far better off in a little home of our own--'be it ever so humble.' It takes strong--no, I mean tough people to get on without home comforts. You and Jessamy are getting utterly worn out, as nervous and fretted as you can be, and if you put half the strength it takes to live this way into healthy housework you would have everything you need and not be tired, still less cross."
"Phyllis is right!" exclaimed Tom. "It's a miserable way to live."
"Of course I'm right," said Phyllis; "only this isn't living. Now, I've been figuring," and she held up her sheet of paper. "It costs us fourteen hundred and fifty-six dollars a year to board as we are boarding now. Our washing is about three dollars a week--that is a hundred and fifty-six dollars a year--and that makes sixteen hundred and twelve dollars. Then, I don't know what you are spending besides for all these nourishing things auntie and I are having."