Lanse puts on overalls I'm after him."

Celia looked at her father. "What do you think of all this, sir?" she
asked. "If I stay at home, dismiss Delia, and do the housework myself,
and Lanse finds some suitable position, can't we get on? Charlotte can
put off the school of design another year. We will all be very
economical about clothes----"

"Being economical doesn't bring in cash to pay bills," interrupted Jeff.
"Do the best he can, Lanse won't draw any hair-raising salary the first
year. He could probably get clerical work at one of the banks, but
what's that? He'd fall off so in his wind I could throw him across the
room in three months."

They all laughed. Jeff's devotion to athletics dominated his ideals at
all times, and his disgust at the thought of such a depletion of his
brother's physical forces was amusing.

Celia was still looking at her father. He spoke in the hearty tone to
which they were accustomed, his face full of satisfaction.

"You please me very much, all of you," he said. "It will be the best
tonic I can offer your mother. Her greatest trial is this very
necessity, which she foresaw the instant the plan was formed--so much
sacrifice on the part of her children. Yet she agreed with me that the
experience might not be wholly bad for you, and she said"--he paused,
smiling at his elder daughter--"that with Celia at the helm she was sure
the family ship wouldn't be wrecked"

Then he told them that they might plan the division of labour and