His father had not questioned their style of living, nor did he.

That a family of five women might, between them, do the work of the house, he did not even consider.
Mrs.Warden's health was never good, and since her husband's death she had made daily use of many afghans on the many lounges of the house.
Madeline was "delicate," and Adeline was "frail"; Cora was "nervous," Dora was "only a child." So black Sukey and her husband Jonah did the work of the place, so far as it was done; and Mrs.Warden held it a miracle of management that she could "do with one servant," and the height of womanly devotion on her daughters' part that they dusted the parlor and arranged the flowers.
Roscoe shut his eyes and tried to rest, but his problem beset him ruthlessly.

There was the store--their one and only source of income.
There was the house, a steady, large expense.

There were five women to clothe and keep contented, beside himself.

There was the unappeasable demand of the mortgage--and there was Diantha.
When Mr.Warden died, some four years previously, Roscoe was a lad of about twenty, just home from college, full of dreams of great service to the world in science, expecting to go back for his doctor's degree next year.