"I don't think I ever did, either. Well, here we are: 'Advice to Librans for the Month of August.'" Portia began to read aloud. August, in Madame Vavasour's point of view, was rather a poor month for Librans. Caution was the keynote. They would have to be careful all month long; careful of their health, careful of their possessions, careful about accidents, suspicious of Good Offices proffered by any but their Nearest and Dearest, and constantly on the lookout for Traducers--"Whatever they are," Lucy said. "Traitors, probably, like Julian and Tom and Joe," was Portia's opinion. Above all, Librans were to be careful about money and valuables. They could not be too careful, and were to Lie Low. "This month will not be profitable or eventful to those of you born under the Sign of the Scales," Madame Vavasour concluded. "Expect little in the way of pleasure or enrichment. It will be vexing, nay, onerous to you who so highly value the Good Things of Life; but attempt to accept this period of retrenchment with Patience and Humility. Wait and Hope, and guard with care those valuables already in your possession." Portia threw the book down. "What valuables; my tooth braces?" she demanded sarcastically. "Lucy, I wish we'd never read it. Now we have nothing to look forward to but being bored!" "Oh, pooh, I don't believe a word of it. I don't _really_ believe she had any secret power. Neither do you. I think she was just writing about some dead old boring August in eighteen-eighty-whatever-it-was." "Do you really?" "I really do. But I still think she was very good about character," Lucy said.... The girls were sitting on the window seat in Portia's room with the door closed. It was a dull, gray day, and Foster and Davey had thunderously invaded the house, bringing with them a fresh supply of boys their own age. They seemed to be doing an extraordinary amount of shouting and pounding up and downstairs. "Boys just have to be noisy," Lucy observed critically. "They just naturally have to be noisy, the way a chicken has to have feathers. I don't know why." "Daddy always says what Mark Twain said about them--you know, the Tom Sawyer man--_he_ said that what a small boy is, is a 'loud noise with dirt on it'.... Listen to Gulliver, too, but of course he can't help it; he's a boy himself." "They should take lessons from Mousenick," Lucy said, stroking the tiny cat, asleep beside her. "Wouldn't it be nice if we could keep him a kitten forever?" "I wish we could." Portia stood up, stretching and yawning. "And I wish there was something to _do_." There seemed to be nothing whatever to do. It was that sort of day. The big boys had gone off somewhere; but of course it didn't matter to her because she and Lucy were mad at _them_; and the little boys were busily unraveling peace inside the house.... Portia wandered over to the mirror and looked at herself. "And I wish I didn't have these _freckles_," she complained.