"Really? Another? Really? I didn't know," murmured Anne.
"You never do," Louisa commented severely. "Will he drive it himself, Mary?"
For a moment Mary wondered whether the inquiry related to the prospective infant or the car; but Sarah answered for her.
"He'll drive it himself for a couple o' months, and then he'll have a nasty accident one of these fine days and smash the whole concern, and start a new craze. That's what he'll do."
"I thought carpentering was the last fad?" Louisa transferred a pin from her mouth to the hem of the shirt she was stitching.
"He tried carpentering until their maid fell over his newfangled draught screen at the head of the stairs and broke her leg. Then he really had to stop turning his drawing-room into a joiner's shop. Louisa, hand me that other ball of wool, please." Mrs. Bannister made a practice of exacting occasional small services from her sisters, to impress upon them her seniority.
"If we don't take care," remarked Louisa, "we shall find the Tobys will be another lot of poor relations." Being dependent herself, she naturally objected to anyone else occupying a similar position.
"There's one thing I will say for Toby"—Sarah so rarely said things in favour of her relatives that the company looked up attentively—"I don't think he ever would be a poor relation."
"I'm sure he'll ruin himself one day," sighed Aunt Jane.
"Being a poor relation has nothing to do with how much money you've got. It's just a state of mind."