“You ought to have heard my grandmother’s remarks on restaurant food,” remarked Helen. “She used to expect to hear of Father’s death any minute after she found that he had to get his lunch in Town every day. Say, girls, I’m glad we don’t have to live up to our grandmothers. Mine used to make all the family clothes—by hand, if you please, and you should just have seen the tucks!—and do all the cooking, when they didn’t have maids, and run the house, and doctor her own family and half the district for fifty miles round, and take an odd turn at harvesting, or bush-fire fighting, or cattle-mustering, or——”
“Oh, they couldn’t, Helen! It simply wouldn’t happen!”
“But it did! They fought blacks too sometimes on their own, when the grandfathers were away; and they doctored injured cattle, and taught their kiddies, and lots of ’em spun their own wool and knitted it. And they kept up their accomplishments—painting, and music: Grannie played the harp like fun, even when she was old. And they hadn’t any labour-saving devices at all. What if any of us found ourselves up against a job like that!”
“I’d be sorry for the person who expected me to keep up accomplishments while I made the family clothes by hand!” said Nita firmly. “That would be sufficient accomplishment for me, thank you. Anyhow, I agree we’re not what our grandmothers were. What are you going to do when you leave, Grace?”
“Oh, I’m going to the Gallery,” Grace said. “If I can’t paint I can’t do anything. Later on, if I show signs of its being worth while, they’ll let me go to England to study. What about you?”
“Tennis, principally, I think,” said Nita, laughing. “I haven’t thought of anything else. Golf too, I suppose. And dances. I’m going to have a good time for a while, anyhow. Don’t ask me to be serious, because it simply can’t occur!”
“Hear, hear!” said several pyjama’d figures, with relieved accents. There were others to whom the breaking of the school chain meant only “a good time.” No one wanted to be serious.
“Well, I’m going to learn to run the house,” Helen said. “Mother says so, and what she says generally happens. But we’re going to Ceylon for a year first if we can depot Rex.”
“Who’s Rex?”
“My little brother. He hasn’t been strong, and the doctor doesn’t want him to go to Ceylon. But he is a bit young for school—only nine. Aunt Ada was to have taken charge of him, but now she is going to England herself. However, I suppose we’ll find a home for him somewhere.”