“I was waiting for you. You’re five minutes older.”
“I wish you always remembered it!” said Jo severely. “Well, we’ll tell together. You see——”
“There’s nothing wrong, is there, girls?” queried Mrs. Weston anxiously. “You’re not ill, Jo?”
“Do I look it?” asked Jo. “No, but we’ve been fixing up a bit of business on our own. We do hope you won’t mind.”
“You simply mustn’t mind,” said Jean. “It was so dreadful to think we couldn’t earn any money to help you——”
“And when you’re fifteen and a half there doesn’t seem any way to earn money. And we were tearing our hair about it at school——”
“And Helen—er—one of the senior girls happened to hear——”
“The tearing of the hair?” asked Mr. Weston solemnly.
“Yes, it made an awful row. Like tearing calico. And she started thinking, and so she came up in her kimono early next morning——”
“And offered us her little brother!” Jean finished triumphantly. She glared at her father and mother as if defying them to make any protest.