"I've been jotting down some figures, Mary Jane, just to see how we will come out with our income of sixty thousand dollars."
"Well?"
"If we give the place across the street for a park and a library and a hundred thousand dollars with which to run it, we shall have just nine hundred thousand left."
"Yes."
"We shall want horses, say a carriage pair, and a horse for the station wagon. Then I must have a saddle horse and there must be a pony for the children. I thought also you might as well have a gentle pair for your own driving. That makes six. Then there will have to be, say, three stable men. Now, my notion is that we shall put up a larger house farther up town with all the necessary stabling. Count the cost of the house and suitable appointments, and add in the four months' trip to Europe which we decided yesterday to take next summer, and how much of that fifty-four thousand do you think we shall have left at the end of the year?"
"But why build the house from our income?"
"Mary Jane, I want to start out with the fixed idea that we will not cut into our principal."
"Well, how much will we have over?"
"Not a dollar! The outlay for the year will approximate fifty-six thousand dollars."
"Large, isn't it?"