Now, according to Meg's experience, grown-up people--elderly people--seldom enjoyed anything; above all, never alluded to their enjoyment. Life was a thing to be endured with fortitude, its sorrows borne with Christian resignation; its joys, if there were any joys, discreetly slurred over. Joys were insidious, dangerous things that might lead to the leaving undone of obvious duties. To seek joy and insure its being shared by others, bravely and honestly believing it to be an excellent thing, was to Meg an entirely unknown frame of mind. After the play, in Meg's room the three girls were brushing their hair together; to be accurate, Jan was brushing Fay's and Meg admiring the process. "Have you any sisters?" Jan asked. She was always interested in people's relations. "No," said Meg. "There are, mercifully, only three of us, my two brothers and me. If there had been any more I don't know what my poor little Papa would have done." "Why do you call him your 'poor little papa'?" Fay asked curiously. "Because he is poor--dreadfully--and little, and very melancholy. He suffers so from depression." "Why?" asked the downright Jan. "Partly because he has indigestion, _constant_ indigestion, and then there's us, and boys are so expensive, they will grow so. It upsets him dreadfully." "But they can't help growing," Fay objected. "It wouldn't matter so much if they didn't both do it at once. But you see, there's only a year between them, and they're just about the same size. If only one had been smaller, he could have worn the outgrown things. As it is, it's always new clothes for both of them. Papa's are no sort of use, and even the cheapest suits cost a lot, and boots are perfectly awful." Meg looked so serious that Fay and Jan, who were like the lilies of the field, and expected new and pretty frocks at reasonable intervals as a matter of course, looked serious too; for the first time confronted by a problem whose possibility they had never even considered before. "He must be pleased with you," Jan said, encouragingly. "_You're_ not too big." "Yes, but then I'm not a boy. Papa's clothes would have made down for me beautifully if I'd been a boy; as it is, they're no use." Meg sighed, then added more cheerfully. "But I cost less in other ways, and several relations send old clothes to me. They are never too small." "Do you like the relations' clothes?" Fay asked. "Of course not," said Meg, simply. "They are generally hideous; but, after all, they cover me and save expense." The spoiled daughters of Anthony Ross gazed at Meg with horror-stricken eyes. To them this seemed a most tragic state of things. "Do they all," Fay asked timidly, "wear such ... rich materials--like Cousin Amelia?" "They're fond of plush, as a rule, but there's velveteen as well, and sometimes a cloth dress. One was mustard-coloured, and embittered my life for a whole year."