inside of her head or heart or conscience a chime of words. "_Next to
father_!" Making a magnificent oratorical leap she finished her sentence
with only a second's break,--"peacock, but if mother thinks Julia is a
duty, a duty she is, and we must brace up and do her. Must we love her,
mother, or can we just be good and polite to her, giving her the breast
and taking the drumstick? _She_ won't ever say, '_Don't let me rob
you_!' like Cousin Ann, when _she_ takes the breast!"

Kathleen looked distinctly unresigned. She hated drumsticks and all that
they stood for in life. She disliked the wall side of the bed, the
middle seat in the carriage, the heel of the loaf, the underdone
biscuit, the tail part of the fish, the scorched end of the omelet. "It
will make more difference to me than anybody," she said gloomily.

"Everything makes more difference to you, Kitty," remarked Gilbert.

"I mean I'm always fourth when the cake plate's passed,--in everything!
Now Julia'll be fourth, and I shall be fifth; it's lucky people can't
tumble off the floor!"

"Poor abused Kathleen!" cried Gilbert. "Well, mother, you're always
right, but I can't see why you take another one into the family, when
we've been saying for a week there isn't even enough for us five to live
on. It looks mighty queer to put me in the public school and spend the
money you save that way, on Julia!"

Way down deep in her heart Mother Carey felt a pang. There was a little
seed of hard self-love in Gilbert that she wanted him to dig up from the
soil and get rid of before it sprouted and waxed too strong.