“Shouldering your cares already, aren’t you?  Got to keep us all straight, and develop all our characters.  Poor girl, you’ll have a hard tussle!”

“I’m afraid I shall.  Do you go to work at the shops in the morning?”

“Yes.  Breakfast at six.  Did you tell Delia?”

“Yes, but I’m going to let her go afterward.  I arranged with her, when father first told us, to stay just till they had gone, and then leave things to me.  I can’t be too busy from now on, and I don’t want to wait a day to begin.”

“Wise girl.  Sorry, though, that I have to get you up every morning so early.  Couldn’t you leave things ready so I could manage for myself about breakfast, somehow?”

“No, indeed!  If I’m to have a day-labourer for a brother, I shall see that he has a good hot breakfast and the heartiest kind of a lunch in his pail every-day.”

“You’re the right sort!” murmured Lansing, patting his sister’s shoulder as he paused with her in front of her door.  “I must admit I shall prefer the hot breakfast.  Better sleep late to-morrow morning, though.”

“I shall be up when you are,” Celia declared.

“Look here, little girl,” said Lansing, speaking soberly in the darkness.  “You know you haven’t got this household on your shoulders all alone.  It’s a partnership affair, and don’t you forget it.  Now, good night, and take care you sleep like a top.”

Celia held him tight for a minute, and answered bravely: 

“You’re a dear boy, and a great comfort.”

Lansing tiptoed away to his own room, farther down the hall, feeling a strong sense of relief that the determination of the young substitute heads of the house to begin the new regime without a preliminary hour of wailing had been successfully carried through.

“We’ve got the worst over,” he thought, as he fell asleep.  “Once fairly started, it won’t be so bad.  Celia’s clear grit, that’s sure.”

Alone in her room, Celia had it out with herself, and spent a wakeful night.  But she brought a cheerful face to Lansing’s early breakfast, and when the younger members of the family came down later she was ready for them with the sunshine they had dreaded not to find.

Everybody spent a busy day.  Jeff and Justin went off to school.  Charlotte announced with meekness that she was ready for whatever work Celia might find for her, and was given various rooms up-stairs to sweep and dust, her sister being confident that vigorous manual labour would be the best tonic for a mind dispirited.

As for Celia herself, she dismissed Delia, the maid of all work, with a kindly farewell and the letters of recommendation her mother had prepared, and plunged eagerly into business.  She was a born manager, and loved many of the details of housework, particularly the baking and brewing, and she was soon enthusiastically employed in putting the small kitchen to rights.

At noon Charlotte and the boys were served with a light luncheon, with the promise of greater joys to come, and by five in the afternoon the house was filled with the delightful odours of successful cookery.