"Oh, let me go to India, Gerty!" cried Phyllis, in a very audible aside, while Gertrude bent her head and bit her lip, controlling the desire to laugh hysterically, which the naive character of her aunt's last remark had excited. "Now, Gertrude and Lucy," continued the speaker, "I am empowered by your uncle" (poor Septimus!) "to offer you a home for as long as you like. Either as a permanency, or until you have found suitable occupations." "_We_ are in India, Fan, that's why there is no mention of us," whispered naughty Phyllis. "Aunt Caroline," broke in Gertrude, suddenly, lifting her head and speaking with great decision. "You are very kind, and we thank you. But we contemplate other arrangements." "My dear Gertrude, other arrangements! And what 'arrangements,' pray, do you 'contemplate'?" "Fanny, Lucy, Phyllis, shall I tell Aunt Caroline?" They all consented; Fanny, whose willingness to join them had seemed before a doubtful matter, with the greatest promptness of them all. "We think of going into business as photographers." Gertrude dropped her bomb without delight. For a moment she saw herself and her sisters as they were reflected in the mind of Mrs. Septimus Pratt: naughty children, idle dreamers. Aunt Caroline refused to be shocked, and Gertrude felt that her bomb had turned into a pea from a pea-shooter. "Nonsense!" said Mrs. Pratt. "Gertrude, I wonder that you haven't more common sense. And before your younger sisters, too. But common sense," with unpleasant emphasis, "was never a family characteristic." Lucy, who had remained silent and watchful throughout the last part of the discussion, if discussion it could be called, now rose to her feet. "Aunt Caroline," she said in her clear young voice; "will you excuse us if we refuse to discuss this matter with you at present? We have decided nothing; indeed, how could we decide? Gertrude wrote yesterday to an old friend of our father's, who has the knowledge and experience we want; and we are waiting now for his advice." "I think you are a set of wilful, foolish girls," cried Mrs. Pratt, losing her temper at last; "and heaven knows what will become of you! You are my dead sister's children, and I have my duties towards you, or I would wash my hands of you all from this hour. But your uncle shall talk to you; perhaps you will listen to _him_; though there's no saying." She rose from her seat, with a purple flush on her habitually pale face, and without deigning to go through the formalities of farewell, swept from the room, followed by Lucy. "A good riddance!" cried Fan. She too was flushed and excited, poor soul, with defiance. Lucy, coming back from leading her aunt to the carriage, found Gertrude silent, pale, and trembling with rage. "How dare she!" she said below her breath. "She is only very silly," answered Lucy; "I confess I began to wonder if I was an ill-conducted pauper, or a lunatic, or something of the sort, from the tone of her voice."