"

"Go abroad?" every one echoed.

"Oh, I think we must, for Keith's music," Sally said gravely. "He can't
settle down here, you know. He's got to live abroad, and he's got to
have lessons--expensive lessons. Office work makes him too nervous,
anyway."

"Well, my dear, I hope you have money enough to carry out these pleasing
plans," said Miss Toland dryly.

"Well, we have my twenty-five a month," Sally said capably, "and Keith's
father _ought_ to give him another twenty-five, because the expense of
having Keith live at home will be gone, and"--Sally fixed a hopeful eye
on her mother--"and I should think Dad would give me at least that,
Mother," said she. "I must cost him much more than that!"

"Oh, I--don't--know!" said Mrs. Toland guardedly, taken unawares, and
slowly shaking her head.

"Then I thought," pursued the practical Sally, "that if you would give
me half the clothes of a regular trousseau, and if Dad would give us our
travelling expenses to Berlin for a wedding present--why, there you
are!"

"But you two couldn't live on seventy-five dollars a month, Sally!"

"Oh, Mother, Jeannette said you could get a lovely room for two--in a
pension--for a dollar a day! And that leaves forty for lessons, two a
week, and five dollars over!"

"For laundry and carfare and doctor's bills," said Miss Toland
unsympathetically.

"Well!" Sally flared, resentful colour in her cheeks.

"And Dad will never consent to anything so _outrageously_ unfair as living
on thirty-five and spending forty for lessons!" said Barbara.

Poor little Sally looked somewhat crushed.

"For heaven's sake don't let Keith hear you say that, Babbie!" she said
nervously. "It makes him frantic to suggest that you can get decent
lessons in harmony for nothing! I don't know what you know about it,
anyway. I'll fix it with Dad!"

"If Dad allows Sally so much, he ought to do the same for the rest of
us," Constance suggested. Julia, foreseeing a scene, slipped out of the
room.

In the hallway she encountered Doctor Studdiford, who was just
downstairs after a late sleep. Jim had the satisfied air of a man who
has had a long rest, a shave and a bath, and a satisfactory breakfast.

"Family conference?" he said, nodding toward the sitting-room door.

"Sally and Keith are here," Julia announced.

"Oh, are they? Well, I ought to go in. But I also ought to walk up to
the Ridge, and see that poor fellow who ran a shaft into his leg." Jim
hesitated.