"So we will! I'll sit on the pavement and draw pictures in vivid chalks, as a beginning, and with my earnings—oh, up and up I'll go—"
"To the Royal Academy—a studio in South Kensington—private exhibitions—your photograph in all the papers—interviews—'The charming young genius who has taken the artist world by storm greeted me with a delightful amiability. She afforded me a glimpse of a dimple and a half. I understand that her intimate friends are treated to three whole ones—'"
"Oh, be quiet. Tell me if I've done the adding and subtracting right."
"You have! Nell, you're getting on. Meanwhile, we're threepence short. Three whole pennies!"
"Threepence is threepence."
He looked surprised.
"Are you sure?"
"I can't think what it is."
"Account-book?" he suggested blandly.
On the occasion of Nell's first essay at accounts, she had worried and fought and wrestled over a missing sixpence, till Sheila Pat brilliantly bethought her of the account-book, price sixpence. Thereafter the account-book was a family joke.