“But, Muddy dear, you weren’t in earnest?” coaxed Nancy, bending her bright head over her mother’s shoulder and cuddling up to her side; whereupon Gilbert gave his imitation of a jealous puppy; barking, snarling, and pushing his frowzly pate under his mother’s arm to crowd Nancy from her point of vantage, to which she clung valiantly.  Of course Kitty found a small vacant space on which she could festoon herself, and Peter promptly climbed on his mother’s lap, so that she was covered with—­fairly submerged in—­children!  A year ago Julia used to creep away and look at such exhibitions of family affection, with a curling lip, but to-night, at Mother Carey’s outstretched hand and smothered cry of “Help, Judy!” she felt herself gathered into the heart of the laughing, boisterous group.  That hand, had she but known it, was stretched out to her because only that day a letter had come, saying that Allan Carey was much worse and that his mental condition admitted of no cure.  He was bright and hopeful and happy, so said Mr. Manson;—­forever sounding the praises of the labor-saving device in which he had sunk his last thousands.  “We can manufacture it at ten cents and sell it for ten dollars,” he would say, rubbing his hands excitedly.  “We can pay fifty dollars a month office rent and do a business of fifty thousand dollars a year!” “And I almost believe we could!” added Mr. Manson, “if we had faith enough and capital enough!”

“Of course you know, darlings, I would never leave Beulah save for the coldest months; or only to earn a little money,” said Mrs. Carey, smoothing her dress, flattening her collar, and pinning up the braids that Nancy’s hugs had loosened.

“I must put my mind on the problem at once,” said Nancy, pacing the floor.  “I’ve been so interested in my Virgil, so wrapped up in my rhetoric and composition, that I haven’t thought of ways and means for a month, but of course we will never leave the Yellow House, and of course we must contrive to earn money enough to live in it.  We must think about it every spare minute till vacation comes; then we’ll have nearly four months to amass a fortune big enough to carry us through the next year.  I have an idea for myself already.  I was going to wait till my seventeenth birthday, but that’s four months away and it’s too long.  I’m old enough to begin any time.  I feel old enough to write my Reminiscences this minute.”

“You might publish your letters to the American Consul in Breslau; they’d make a book!” teased Gilbert.

“Very likely I shall, silly Gilly,” retorted Nancy, swinging her mane haughtily.  “It isn’t every girl who has a monthly letter from an Admiral in China and a Consul in Germany.”

“You wouldn’t catch me answering the Queen of Sheba’s letters or the Empress of India’s,” exclaimed Gilbert, whose pen was emphatically less mighty than his sword.  “Hullo, you two! what are you whispering about?” he called to Kathleen and Julia, who were huddled together in a far corner of the long room, gesticulating eloquently.