“I could do something,” began Charlotte, eagerly.  “I could—­I could do sewing——­”

At that there was a general howl, which quite broke the solemnity of the occasion.  “Charlotte—­sewing!” they cried.

“Why not take in washing?” urged Lanse.

“Or solicit orders for fancy cooking?”

“Or tutor stupid little boys in languages?  Come!  Fiddle—­stick to your specialty.”

Charlotte’s face was a study as she received these hints.  They represented the things she disliked most and could do least well.  Yet they were hardly farther afield than her own suggestion of sewing.  Charlotte’s inability with the needle was proverbial.

“What position do you consider yourself eminently fitted for, Mr. Lansing Birch?” she inquired, with uplifted chin.

“You have me there,” her brother returned, good-humouredly.  “There’s only one thing I can think of—­to go into the locomotive shops.  Mechanics’ wages are better than most, and a little practical experience wouldn’t hurt me.”

It was his turn to be met with derision.  It could hardly be wondered at, for as he stood before them, John Lansing looked the personification of fastidiousness, and his face, although it surmounted a strongly proportioned and well developed body, suggested the mental characteristics not only of his father, but of certain great-grandfathers and uncles, who had won their distinction in intellectual arenas.  Even his father seemed a little daunted at this proposal.

“That’s it—­laugh!” urged Lanse.  “If I’d proposed to try to get on the ‘reportorial staff’ of a city newspaper you’d all smile approval, as at a thing suited to my genius.  I’d have to live in town to do that, and what little I earned would go to fill my own hungry mouth.  Now at the shops—­you needn’t look so top-lofty!  Dozens of fellows who are taking engineering courses put on the overalls, shoulder a lunch-pail and go to work every morning during vacation at seven o’clock.  They come grinning home at night, their faces black as tar, their spirits up in Q, jump into a bath-tub, put on clean togs, and come down to dinner looking like gentlemen—­but not gentlemen any more thoroughly than they have been all day.”

Jeff looked at his brother seriously.  “Lanse,” he said, “if you go into one of the locomotive shops won’t you get a place for me?”

But Celia interposed.  “Whatever the rest of us do,” she said, “Jeff and Just must keep on with school.”

Jeff rebelled with a grimace.  “Not much!” he shouted.  “I guess one six-footer is as good as another in a boiler-shop.  You don’t catch me swallowing algebra and German when I might be developing muscle.  If Lanse puts on overalls I’m after him.”

Celia looked at her father.  “What do you think of all this, sir?” she asked.  “If I stay at home, dismiss Delia, and do the housework myself, and Lanse finds some suitable position, can’t we get on?  Charlotte can put off the school of design another year.  We will all be very economical about clothes——­”