daughters, we knew that the fortune he had inherited had been lost through unwise investments, but we did think that the income from this vast acreage and the tenants would be sufficient to permit us to live in about the same comfortable way that we always have, but now we find that even this place is not ours and that we are—well, up against it, as Bobs would say.”

“Where is Bobs?” This from Lena May, who was arranging the sprays of apple blossoms in a large pale-green bowl on a low wicker stand.

“Look out of yonder window and you will see the object of your inquiry,” Gloria laughed as she pointed toward the park-like grounds where a hoidenish young girl of 17 could be seen riding astride a slender high-spirited black horse with a white star in his forehead.

“I do wish Roberta wouldn’t wear that outlandish costume,” Gwendolyn began, “and what’s more I can’t see why she wants to be galloping around the country in that fashion when a calamity like this is staring us in the face.”

The horse had disappeared beyond the shrubbery. The sisters supposed that the young rider would go down to the stables and so they were somewhat startled, a second later, by seeing Bobs vault over the sill of an open window and land in their midst.

Gwendolyn, of course, rebuked her. “Roberta Vandergrift, aren’t you ever going to become ladylike?” she admonished.

The newcomer was about to retort that she hoped not if Gwen was a sample, but Gloria intervened. “Don’t be ladylike, Bobs,” she said. “Now, more than ever, we need a man in the family. But come, let’s talk peaceably together and decide what we are to do.”

“All right,” Roberta tossed her hat to one side and sat tailor-wise on the floor, adding: “Fire ahead, I’m present.”

“Such language,” was what Gwendolyn refrained from saying, but Bobs chuckled in wicked glee. She thought it jolly fun to shock “Miss Prunes and Prisms,” as she called the sister but one year her senior.

“Gloria, whatever you suggest, I know will be best,” little Lena May said, as she slipped a trusting hand into that of the oldest sister. “Now, tell us, what is your plan?”

The oldest girl was thoughtful for a moment, then said: “Honestly, I don’t know that I have made one very far ahead, but of course we must leave here. That is the inevitable, and, equally of course, we must find some way of 

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