Jessie opened her large brown eyes to mark her horror, and Allen, made a gesture of exaggerated sympathy, which his sister took for more earnest than it was, and she said, scornfully, “I should like to see him literally rolling in gold. It must be like Midas. Do you mean that he sleeps on it, Jessie? How hard and cold!” “Nonsense,” said Jessie; “you know what I mean.” “I know what literally rolling in gold means, but I don’t know what you mean.” “Don’t bully her, Janet,” said Allen; “we are not so stupid, are we, Jessie? Come and show me the walnut-tree you were telling me about.” “What’s the matter, Janet?” said her mother, coming in a moment or two after, and finding her staring blankly out of the window, where the two had made their exit. “O mother, Jessie has been talking such gossip, and Allen likes it, and won’t have it stopped! I can’t think what makes Allen and Bobus both so foolish whenever she is here.” “She is a very pretty creature,” said Carey, smiling a little. “Pretty!” repeated Janet. “What has that to do with it?” “A great deal, as you will have to find out in the course of your life, my dear.” “I thought only foolish people cared about beauty.” “It is very convenient for us to think so,” said Carey, smiling. “But mother--surely everybody cares for you just as much or more than if you were a great handsome, stupid creature! How I hate that word handsome!” “Except for a cab,” said Carey. “Ah! when shall I see a Hansom again?” said Janet in a slightly sentimental tone. But she returned to the charge, “Don’t go, mother, I want you to answer.” “Beauty versus brains! My dear, you had better open your eyes to the truth. You must make up your mind to it. It is only very exceptional people who, even in the long run, care most for feminine brains.” “But, mother, every one did.” “Every one in our world, Janet; but your father made our home set of those exceptional people, and we are cast out of it now!” she added, with a gasp and a gesture of irrepressible desolateness. “Yes, that comes of this horrid move,” said the girl, in quite another tone. “Well, some day--” and she stopped. “Some day?” said her mother. “Some day we’ll go back again, and show what we are,” she said, proudly. “Ah, Janet! and that’s nothing now without _him_.” “Mother, how can you say so, when--?” Jane just checked herself, as she was coming to the great secret. “When we have his four boys,” said her mother. “Ah! yes, Janet--if--and when--But that’s a long way off, and, to come back to our former subject,” she added, recalling herself with a sigh, “it will be wise in us owlets to make up our minds that owlets we are, and to give the place to the eaglets.” “But eaglets are very ugly, and owlets very pretty,” quoth Janet. Carey laughed. “That does not seem to have been the opinion of the Beast Epic,” said she, and the entrance of Babie prevented them from going further.