But Jessamy and Phyllis, who had controlled themselves while Bab sobbed, could not raise their heads.
Bab was mercurial—always, as she herself put it, "going off" to extremes. She had cried her first terror away, and now the necessity of her nature to look on the bright side and find something funny in all situations began to assert itself.
"I think likely two thousand a year will be a lot when we get used to it, though it costs that to clothe us all now, I suppose. I expect to learn to manage so well that we can adopt twins on the money we have left over. I shall go to get points from Ruth Wells; I always thought she was splendid, and longed to know her; she understands how to make every quarter a half-dollar. Now, girls, we're going to be like the people in the story-books, and learn who are our true friends—don't you know how misfortune always tests them? Look up—smile! 'Rise, Sally, rise; dry your weeping eyes!'"
"Don't, Bab," murmured Jessamy, faintly. "You haven't an idea of what has really happened." But she raised her head, and attempted to check her tears as she spoke.
Bab saw it with secret triumph; she was actually talking herself into something like cheerfulness. "Don't I! I have quite as much experience as you, miss, anyway. Still, I'm willing to confess I'd rather not be poor," she added, with the air of making a generous concession. "But I feel sure we'll be happy yet, because I, for one, have got to be. But it is rather hard to get thrown off your high wall when you've sat on it all your life. Poor Humpty Dumpty! I never properly felt for him before."
And Bab was rewarded for her nonsense by a tearful smile from Jessamy and Phyllis.
CHAPTER II
FRIENDS, COUNSELORS, AND PLANS
