“We’ll have the finish mahogany, d’ye see?” said Peter, “and the walls and curtains of dark green velvet.”

“Dark green velvet!” Kennedy said, from the couch where she was sitting, busy with a torn sleeve lining.  “Oh, horrors!  Why not red velvet and gold braid!”

“Well, what would you have?” Peter asked belligerently.

“Oh, grayish blue velvet,” ’Lizabeth suggested rapturously.

“Very pale, you know, and silvery curtains,” Kennedy agreed, “and one gorgeous bluish-grayish-pinkish rug, like the two-thousand-dollar one at the White House!”

“Well,” Peter said, satisfied.  “And what colour upholstery?”

“Dark blue might be beautiful,” Julia submitted timidly.

“Dark blue—­you’re on, Miss Page!”

“Or a sort of blue brocade,” ’Lizabeth said dreamily.

“And I’ll tell you what we’ll name the cars,” George, the second brother, suddenly contributed; “you know they’ve got to be named, Pete.  We’ll call the dining-car, ‘Dinah,’ and the sleeper, ‘Bertha’; do you see?”

The others shouted approval, Peter adding with a grin, a moment later: 

“And we might call the observation car ’Luke’!”

“Oh, Peter!” Kennedy expostulated, laughing.  She presently interrupted the completing details of the private train by general suggestions of bed.  The four girls went upstairs together.

“Oh, Mary, you’ve fixed everything, you little angel, you!” said Kennedy, seeing that hats and wraps had been put away, and a couch made up in a large shabby bedroom.  ’Lizabeth, professing that she loved a couch, settled herself upon it with great satisfaction, Julia had a single bed, and Kennedy and the little Mary shared a somewhat larger one.

Julia watched the sisters with deep admiration; they were all tired, she knew, yet vigorous ablutions went on in the cold little bathroom, and clothes were brushed and made ready for to-morrow’s need.  Their joyous talk was pitifully practical, Mary raising the dread topic of new shoes for Stephen, the youngest, and Kennedy somewhat ruefully conceding that the shoes must be had, even at the cost of the needed gallon of olive oil.

“No salads for a month, and they’re so cheap!” she mourned.  “And that young terror seems to me to need shoes every week!  Don’t ever have sons, Miss Page, they’re a heart scald wid the bould ways av thim!  Stephen had nine pairs of shoes in eight months—­that’s true, isn’t it, ’Lizabeth?  For we were keeping accounts then—­ while Dad’s will was in probate, we had to.”

“A good thing to have a will to fall back on,” said Julia.

“Even if we only inherited one hundred and sixteen dollars apiece,” ’Lizabeth added.

“Dad had had losses—­it wasn’t any one’s fault—­everything went to smash,” Kennedy supplemented instantly.  “And of course when we found that Steve had been braking his coaster with his feet, that helped.  But me—­I’m going to have only girls—­five darling little gray-eyed girls with brown hair!”