THE SEVEN DARLINGS [Illustration: She stood stock-still, in plain view if they had looked her way] THE SEVEN DARLINGS * * * * * BY GOUVERNEUR MORRIS * * * * * [Illustration] With Frontispiece By HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY * * * * * A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by Arrangements with CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TO HOPE DAVIS THE SEVEN DARLINGS I Six of the Darlings were girls. The seventh was a young man who looked like Galahad and took exquisite photographs. Their father had died within the month, and Mr. Gilpin, the lawyer, had just faced them, in family assembled, with the lamentable fact that they, who had been so very, very rich, were now astonishingly poor. "My dears," he said, "your poor father made a dreadful botch of his affairs. I cannot understand how some men----" "Please!" said Mary, who was the oldest. "It can't be any satisfaction to know why we are poor. Tell us just how poor we are, and we'll make the best of it. I understand that The Camp isn't involved in the general wreck." "It isn't," said Mr. Gilpin, "but you will have to sell it, or at least, rent it. Outside The Camp, when all the estate debts are paid, there will be thirty or forty thousand dollars to be divided among you." "In other words--_nothing_," said Mary; "I have known my father to spend more in a month." "Income--" began Mr. Gilpin. "_Dear_ Mr. Gilpin," said Gay, who was the youngest by twenty minutes; "don't." "Forty thousand dollars," said Mary, "at four per cent is sixteen hundred. Sixteen hundred divided by seven is how much?" "Nothing," said Gay promptly. And all the family laughed, except Arthur, who was trying to balance a quill pen on his thumb. "I might," said Mr. Gilpin helplessly, "be able to get you five per cent or even five and a half." "You forget," said Maud, the second in age, and by some thought the first in beauty, "that we are father's children. Do you think _he_ ever troubled his head about five and a half per cent, or even," she finished mischievously, "six?" Arthur, having succeeded in balancing the quill for a few moments, laid it down and entered the discussion. "What has been decided?" he asked. His voice was very gentle and uninterested. "It's an awful pity mamma isn't in a position to help us," said Eve. Eve was the third. After her, Arthur had been born; and then, all on a bright summer's morning, the triplets, Lee, Phyllis, and Gay. "That old scalawag mamma married," said Lee, "spends all her money on his old hunting trips." "Where is the princess at the moment?" asked Mr. Gilpin.