"Come! Come! First thing we know we'll actually be feeling sorry for ourselves! I sometimes get awfully tired living up to Dad's greatness, but I don't think that's being disrespectful to his memory. I don't suppose there are any girls, even rich ones, who don't sigh for something they haven't. But just to stiffen our spines let's sum up our assets. We're not quite as poor as church mice; we have this old house that isn't half bad, even if the roof does leak, and the government bonds and the royalties and living the way we had to live with Dad taught us to have fun among ourselves which is something! We're not dependent upon outsiders for _that_. You, Issy, have your personality which will get you anywhere you want to go. And Vick's better dressed on nothing than any girl in Middletown. We older girls do have a little more than Sid, so I vote she has the Egg this time all to herself to do exactly as she pleases with it--go 'round the world in search of adventure or any old thing. How's that, family?" The tension that had held the little circle broke under Trude's practical cheeriness. Isolde smiled. Vick liked being told she looked well-dressed, she worked hard enough to merit that distinction. Sid had the promise of the Egg, which, be it known, was the royalty accruing each year from a collection of whimsical verse entitled "Goosefeathers" and which these absurd daughters of a great but improvident man set aside from the other royalties to be spent prodigally by each in turn. "I'm quite willing," Isolde conceded. "I was going to suggest that we agree to use it this time to fix the roof where it leaks but if Sid's heart is set on it--" "It would have been my turn--that is not counting Sid," Vick reminded them, "and I'd have used it having that fur coat Godmother Jocelyn sent me made over. But let the roof leak and the coat go--little Sid must have her fling! I hope you're happy now, kid. What will you really do with all that money?" At no time had Sidney definitely considered such a question. Her point won she found herself embarrassed by victory. She evaded a direct answer. "I won't tell, now!" "Oh--ho, mysterious! Well, there won't be so much that you'll hurt yourself in your youthful extravagance. Now that this momentous _affaire de famille_ is settled, what are you girls going to do this morning?" "As soon as these dishes are out of the way I'm going to trim that vine on the front wall. It's disgustingly scraggly." "Oh, Trude--you _can't_! You forget--_it's Saturday_!"