for three houses, and I
said we wouldn't buy houses at all, but would buy the lot
and build there side by side and just to suit us. And I said
we would have our studios on the same floor of each, and
opening through into each other as they do now, and that
Perny's should be between, because we both illustrate his
work sometimes, and that then we would be able to hire
editors to run the 'Whole Family,' and we would work at the
kind of work we liked to do and at no other. And I said that
evenings we would sit together and talk just as we do now,
and you would be there, too--though, of course, I didn't
say that, but I know they understood and liked it, and you
would like it too, sweetheart, for you have said so.

"And then Van said, 'Bully, old man!' and Perny didn't say
anything, but he put his arms over Van and me when we came
to the stairs, and we went up and took a look at my picture
before dark. Perny wants me to finish it and sell it to get
the money to put into the paper, and says he is going to buy
it back with the first returns that come, to hang over his
desk when we get into our new houses. But he isn't, because
we are going to give it to him, you and I, when you come,
and then we will all go together and try to make the
originals of it happier because we are so happy ourselves.
The money I have been saving will be enough, I am sure, to
pay my share in starting the paper, for we will only have a
few little engraving and composition and stationery bills
and postage, and maybe some salaries to pay, before the
returns begin to come in. But I am going to finish the
picture anyway, so's to have it ready, and Perny and Van
both say it is the best thing, so far, I have ever done. We
don't any of us work as much as we did, but then it has
taken such a lot of time to plan for the paper that we
couldn't, and, after all, a few dollars invested that way
now will count so much for us all by and by. Perny is
working at editing, too, a good deal, and Van and I help. We
have already got some 'copy' at the printer's, and Van and I
have designed some department headings and a title-head that
I will send you proofs of as soon as we get them engraved.
We are going to have a beautiful paper, and if we can only
get presses to print them fa