"Yes, dear," Jenny broke in. "But I don't think a boarding-house would do, somehow. We haven't enough to make a good one, and to make it safe. You see Melbourne simply swarms with them already."
"And you'd have to take men--women are no good, and, besides, there aren't any--and I won't have all sorts of clerks and cads making free in the house with my sisters," said young Joe severely.
"We needn't let them make free," said Jenny, smiling. "And you're only a clerk yourself," said Sarah.
"And I don't think there's a boarding-house in the town that would have a table like mine for the money," said his mother, with spirit, and with the air of having considered the subject.
Jenny thought for a minute or two, rapidly; then she shook her head. "Too much outlay," she objected, "and the result too uncertain."
"Everything is uncertain in this world," sighed Mrs. Liddon, disappointed and discouraged. "Then what do you propose yourself, my dear? A school?"
Jenny shook her head again. "The place is literally stiff with them," she replied. "And, even if there were room for us, we are not qualified."
"Let us have a four-roomed cottage," said Sarah, "and keep ourselves to ourselves; have no servant, and take in sewing or type-writing."
"We should be insolvent in a couple of years or so," her sister replied, "and we should cripple Joey."
"As to that," said Joey, "I'm not afraid. I want to take care of you, and I ought. I am the only man in the family, and women have no business to work and slave while they have a man to do for them."
"My poor boy! On a hundred and thirty pounds a year!"
3
"It won't always be a hundred and thirty."
"No, Joe. We can do better than that. Thank you all the same, old fellow." "Well, tell us how you can do better."
He squared his arms on the table and looked at her. Her mother and sister also looked at her, for it was evident that she was about to bring forth her scheme, and that she expected it to impress them.
"What I should have liked," she began, "if there had been money enough for a fair start--which there isn't--is a--quite a peculiar and particular--not in any way a conventional--shop."
"Oh!"
"Good gracious!" "Go on!"
"You needn't all look so shocked. A shop such as I should have would be a different kind of thing from the common, I assure you. I have often thought of it. I have always felt"--with a smile of confidence--"that I had it in me to conduct a good business--that I could give the traditional shopkeeper 'points,' as Joey would say. However, like the boarding-house, it would swallow up all the money at one gulp, so it can't be done."
"A good job too," said Joey with a rough laugh.
"Don't say that without thinking," rejoined the girl, whose intelligent face had brightened with the mention of her scheme. "I daresay you would rather be a millionaire--so would I; but you must remember we have to earn our bread, without much choice as to ways of doing it. It would have been nice, after a day's work"--she looked persuadingly at Sarah--"to have had tea in our own back parlour, all alone by ourselves, free and comfortable; and in the evening to have totted up our takings for the day--all cash, of
course--and seen them getting steadily bigger and bigger; and by-and-by--because I know that, with a good start, I should have suc-
ceeded--to have become well enough off to sell out, and go to travel in Europe, and do things." "Ah--that!" sighed Sarah, who had a thin, large-eyed, eager face that betokened romantic aspirations.
"If I had only myself to consider, I would do it now," said Jenny. "But there are you three--your money must not be risked."
Joey thought of an elegant little cousin up country, the daughter of a bank manager, who naturally turned up her nose at retail trade; and he said that, as the present head of the family--he was afraid Jenny was over-looking the fact that he held this position by divine right of sex--he should certainly withhold his sanction from any such absurd project, risk or no risk. "Thank the Lord," he blustered angrily, "we have not come down to that--not yet!"
She laughed in his face. "You talked about cads just now," she said; "take care you don't get tainted with their ideas yourself. And don't forget that you are only nineteen, while I am twenty-four, and mother is just twice as old as that; and that what little we have is hers; and that women in these days are as good as men, and much better than boys; and that you are expected to allow us to know what is best for a few years more."
She was a diminutive creature, barely five feet high; but she had the moral powers of a giantess, and was really a remarkable little person, though her family was not aware of it. Joey loved her dearly in an easy-going brotherly way, but maintained that she "bossed the show" unduly at times, and on such occasions he was apt to kick against her pretensions. Lest he should do so now, and an unseemly squabble ensue, Mrs. Liddon interposed with the remark that it was useless to discuss what was impracticable, and begged her daughter to come to business.
"Well," said Jenny then, fixing her bright eyes on the boy's sulky but otherwise handsome face, "this is my proposal--that we open a tea-room--a sort of refined little restaurant for quiet people, don't you know; a kind of----"
Joey rose ostentatiously from his chair.
"Sit down, Joey, and listen to me," commanded Jenny.
4
"I'm not going to sit down and listen to a lot of tommy-rot," was Joey's scornful reply.
"Very well--go away, then; we can talk a great deal better without you. Take a walk. And when you come back we will tell you what we have decided on."
This advice had its natural effect. Joey sat down again, stretched out his legs, and thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets. Jenny
proceeded to unfold her plan to her mother and sister, taking no notice of his sarcastic criticisms.
"Now, dears," she said earnestly, "you know we must do something to keep ourselves, and at the same time to keep a home; don't you?"
They sighed acquiescence.
"And that isn't playwork--we don't expect it to be all pleasure; and we can't afford to have fine-lady fancies, can we?"
They agreed to this, reluctantly.
"Well, then, if we can't do what we would like, we must do what we can. And I can't think of anything more promising than this. I would have quite a small place to begin with--one room, and some sort of kitchen to prepare things in--because rent is the only serious matter, and we must make the thing self-supporting from the first; that is the attraction of my plan, if it has an attraction--the thing I have been specially scheming for. Because, you see, then, if we fail, there won't be any great harm done."
"The publicity!" murmured Mrs. Liddon; and Joey took up the word, and drew offensive pictures of rowdy men invading the establishment, calling for food and drink, and addressing these born ladies as "my dear."
"There will be nothing of that sort," said Jenny calmly. "The place will have no attractions for that class. We must not prohibit men, for that would discourage general custom----"
"Oh--custom!" sneered Joey, with an air of loathing.
"But it will be a woman's place, that men would not think of coming to except to bring women. Just a quiet room, mother; not
all rows of chairs and tables, like a common restaurant--the best of our own furniture, with some wicker chairs added, and a few small tables, like a comfortable private sitting-room, only not so crowded; and floored with linoleum, so that we can wash it easily. Then just tea and coffee and scones--perhaps some little cakes--nothing perishable or messy; perhaps some delicate sandwiches, so that ladies can make a lunch. Only these simple things, but they as perfectly good as it is possible to make them. Mother, your scones----"
Mrs. Liddon smiled. She saw at once that her scones alone would make the tea-room famous.
"We must