for a month, and they're so cheap!" she mourned. "And that
young terror seems to me to need shoes every week! Don't ever have sons,
Miss Page, they're a heart scald wid the bould ways av thim! Stephen had
nine pairs of shoes in eight months--that's true, isn't it, 'Lizabeth?
For we were keeping accounts then--while Dad's will was in probate, we
had to."

"A good thing to have a will to fall back on," said Julia.

"Even if we only inherited one hundred and sixteen dollars apiece,"
'Lizabeth added.

"Dad had had losses--it wasn't any one's fault--everything went to
smash," Kennedy supplemented instantly. "And of course when we found
that Steve had been braking his coaster with his feet, that helped. But
me--I'm going to have only girls--five darling little gray-eyed girls
with brown hair!"

"I'd like a boy to start off with," 'Lizabeth said. "He could take his
sisters to parties--"

"Yes, but they never do; they take other girls to parties!" the
fifteen-year-old Mary said suddenly, and the older girls laughed
together at her sapience.

"Peter has a girl," Kennedy said. "But naturally he won't desert the
bunch. Next year, when some bills we simply couldn't help--"

"Doctor and nurse when George and Mary had typhoid," 'Lizabeth
explained.

"--are paid off," Kennedy continued. "Then, if he still likes her, he
might. But he never stays in love very long," she ended hopefully.

The four girls talked late into the night, and after a picnic the next
day, a Sunday, Julia felt as if she loved them all, and she and Kennedy
began shyly to call each other by their given names. Peter and George
did not go on the picnic, having plans of their own for the day, but the
others spent a dreamy day on Baker's Beach, and the two older boys,
joining the group at dinner, ended the holiday happily. Julia carried
away definite impressions to be brooded over in her quiet times. The
Scotts were "ladies," of course. Somehow, although they were very poor,
they all worked very hard, and all dressed very shabbily, they were
"ladies," and knew only nice people. The sisters were really stronger
and braver than the brothers, and loved their brothers more than they
were loved. Julia wondered why. Also she came a little reluctantly to
the conclusion, as girls at twenty, whether they be Julias or Barbaras,
usually do, that if there were a great many nice young men in the world,
there were a great many marriageable girls, too. No girl could expect