"There is a mistress in the art at your very door! Aunt Margaret would be enchanted to instruct you, and her housekeeping is a marvel of accuracy. She could tell you exactly how much she spent last year on soft soap, and the reason why it was more in ninety-six than in ninety- seven. She could walk about the house in the dark and put her hand on the blue-bag and the list of last week's washing. She makes lists of everything she possesses, from household linen to the Christmas cards which she sends out and receives. Her dresses last for best for four years before they are turned for afternoon wear, and two years later they are re-dipped for mornings. They have histories, like her relations, and make valuable Christmas presents to the charwoman on their eighth birthday. She thinks I am recklessly extravagant because my dresses are worn-out in a year!" "I'll ask her to teach me at once! I'll begin making lists this very afternoon! I'll practise shutting my eyes and searching for the blue- bag," cried Bridgie ardently. "Jack dear, I'll be a model housekeeper, and save so much money that we shall be quite rich." She was all smiles and complaisance, and sat down for the cabinet council with an unruffled brow, but, as we all know, it is more difficult to face one or two definite difficulties than an army of shadowy deprivations, and when the division of the family income made it necessary to subtract considerably from her housekeeping allowance, and to saddle her in addition with several outside expenses, Mistress Bridget sighed and showed signs of rebellion. "Such a lot of trouble for such a trifling saving! 'Twill destroy me altogether to be fussing over every halfpenny. What would it matter if we were a trifle in debt at the end of the year? Geoffrey would pay a hundred pounds without knowing it, and be proud to do it into the bargain!" "But I won't accept it. He has done quite enough as it is. He has paid for Pat's training, and will give him the agency as soon as he is ready to take it, and he paid for Pixie's lessons in Paris. I could not refuse what was good for them, but I'll keep my own house, or give it up altogether!" said Jack proudly, and Sylvia nodded her head in emphatic approval from her place of vantage on the sofa. Pat and Miles also applauded the declaration of independence, and accepted their own share in the contemplated economies with unperturbed serenity, while Pixie sat solemnly in a corner, turning her eyes on the face of each speaker in turns, her shoulders heaving with suppressed emotion. Of all the members of the family it was evident that she took the present difficulty most seriously, and Sylvia was strengthened in the conviction that she had heard and taken to heart the reference to herself which had been made in the afternoon.