"Because he is poor—dreadfully—and little, and very melancholy. He suffers so from depression."
"Why?" asked the downright Jan.
"Partly because he has indigestion, constant indigestion, and then there's us, and boys are so expensive, they will grow so. It upsets him dreadfully."
"But they can't help growing," Fay objected.
"It wouldn't matter so much if they didn't both do it at once. But you see, there's only a year between them, and they're just about the same size. If only one had been smaller, he could have worn the outgrown things. As it is, it's always new clothes for both of them. Papa's are no sort of use, and even the cheapest suits cost a lot, and boots are perfectly awful."
Meg looked so serious that Fay and Jan, who were like the lilies of the field, and expected new and pretty frocks at reasonable intervals as a matter of course, looked serious too; for the first time confronted by a problem whose possibility they had never even considered before.
"He must be pleased with you," Jan said, encouragingly. "You're not too big."
"Yes, but then I'm not a boy. Papa's clothes would have made down for me beautifully if I'd been a boy; as it is, they're no use." Meg sighed, then added more cheerfully. "But I cost less in other ways, and several relations send old clothes to me. They are never too small."
"Do you like the relations' clothes?" Fay asked.
"Of course not," said Meg, simply. "They