"We have thought out a good many of the details," went on Lucy, who was possessed of less imagination than her sister, but had a clearer perception of what arguments would best appeal to Fanny's understanding. "It would not absorb all our capital, we have so many properties already. We thought of buying some nice little business, such as are advertised every week in _The British Journal_. But of course we should do nothing rashly, nor without consulting Mr. Grimshaw." "Not for his advice," put in Gertrude, "but to arrange any transaction for us." "Gertrude and I," went on Lucy, "would do the work, and you, Fanny, if you would, should be our housekeeper." "And I," cried Phyllis, her great eyes shining, "I would walk up and down outside, like that man in the High Street, who tells me every day what a beautiful picture I should make!" "Our photographs would be so good and our manners so charming that our fame would travel from one end of the earth to the other!" added Lucy, with a sudden abandonment of her grave and didactic manner. "We would have afternoon tea in the studio on Sunday, to which everybody should flock; duchesses, cabinet ministers, and Mr. Irving. We should become the fashion, make colossal fortunes, and ultimately marry dukes!" finished off Gertrude. Fanny looked up, helpless but unconvinced. The enthusiasm of these young creatures had failed to communicate itself to her. Their outburst of spirits at such a time seemed to her simply shocking. As Lucy had said, Frances Lorimer was behind the age. She was an anachronism, belonging by rights to the period when young ladies played the harp, wore ringlets, and went into hysterics. Living, moving, and having her being well within the vision of three pairs of searching and intensely modern young eyes, poor Fan could permit herself neither these nor any kindred indulgences; but went her way with a vague, inarticulate sense of injury--a round, sentimental peg in the square, scientific hole of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Now, when the little tumult had in some degree subsided, she ventured once more to address the meeting. That was the worst of Fan; there was no standing up in fair fight and having it out with her; you might as soon fight a feather-bed. Convinced, to all appearances, one moment; the next, she would go back to the very point from which she had started, with that mild but terrible obstinacy of the weak. "I suppose you know," she said, having once more recourse to the black-bordered pocket-handkerchief, "what every one will think?" "Every one will be dead against it. We know that, of course," said Lucy, with the calm confidence of untried strength. Fortunately the discussion was interrupted at this juncture, by the loud voice of the gong announcing luncheon. Fanny rushed off to bathe her eyes. Gertrude ran upstairs to wash her hands, and the two younger girls lingered together a few moments in the studio.