"No, Joe. We can do better than that. Thank you all the same, old fellow."
"Well, tell us how you can do better."
He squared his arms on the table and looked at her. Her mother and sister also looked at her, for it was evident that she was about to bring forth her scheme, and that she expected it to impress them.
"What I should have liked," she began, "if there had been money enough for a fair start—which there isn't—is a—quite a peculiar and particular—not in any way a conventional—shop."
"Oh!"
"Good gracious!"
"Go on!"
"You needn't all look so shocked. A shop such as I should have would be a different kind of thing from the common, I assure you. I have often thought of it. I have always felt"—with a smile of confidence—"that I had it in me to conduct a good business—that I could give the traditional shopkeeper 'points,' as Joey would say. However, like the boarding-house, it would swallow up all the money at one gulp, so it can't be done."
"A good job too," said Joey with a rough laugh.
"Don't say that without thinking," rejoined the girl, whose intelligent face had brightened with the mention of her scheme. "I daresay you would rather be a millionaire—so would I; but you must remember we have to earn our bread, without much choice as to ways of doing it. It would have been nice, after a day's work"—she looked persuadingly at Sarah—"to have had tea in our own back parlour, all alone by ourselves, free and comfortable; and in the evening to have totted up our takings for the day—all cash, of course—and seen them getting steadily bigger and bigger; and by-and-by—because I know that, with a good start, I should have succeeded—to have become well enough off to sell out, and go to travel in Europe, and do things."