“Jean,” said Jo, “if I don’t tell I shall burst.”
“I was waiting for you. You’re five minutes older.”
“I wish you always remembered it!” said Jo severely. “Well, we’ll tell together. You see——”
“There’s nothing wrong, is there, girls?” queried Mrs. Weston anxiously. “You’re not ill, Jo?”
“Do I look it?” asked Jo. “No, but we’ve been fixing up a bit of business on our own. We do hope you won’t mind.”
“You simply mustn’t mind,” said Jean. “It was so dreadful to think we couldn’t earn any money to help you——”
“And when you’re fifteen and a half there doesn’t seem _any_ way to earn money. And we were tearing our hair about it at school——”
“And Helen—er—one of the senior girls happened to hear——”
“The tearing of the hair?” asked Mr. Weston solemnly.
“Yes, it made an awful row. Like tearing calico. And she started thinking, and so she came up in her kimono early next morning——”
“And offered us her little brother!” Jean finished triumphantly. She glared at her father and mother as if defying them to make any protest.
“It seems more like a way out of the other girl’s difficulties than yours,” remarked Mr. Weston, much puzzled. “Did you mention to her that you had a little brother of your own? Or perhaps you offered Billy in exchange?”
Billy, who had been sitting in a corner of the big sofa in unwonted silence, snorted indignantly.
“My dear girls, what _do_ you mean?” asked Mrs. Weston.
“Why, I thought we’d made it quite clear,” said Jean, rather aggrieved. “You see, they want to get rid of her little brother——”
“That sounds as if he were pretty beastly, but he’s not,” said Jo. “Only they’re all going away to Colombo, and——”
“And he can’t go, ’cause of the climate, and——”
“My beloved daughters,” remarked Mr. Weston, “if you would only speak one at a time, and say what you really _do_ mean, we’d know more about it. You first, Jo—you’re the eldest.”
“Well, but we told you, didn’t we? They’re going to Colombo, and they can’t take him, ’cause he’s only nine, and not very strong. And they were wondering what on earth to do with him—they didn’t want to send him to school. They were at their wits’ end. And then they thought of us. And we’ve made an arrangement—that is, if you approve, only you simply _can’t_ disapprove, or it’ll put them in the most frightful fix—that we’re to take him, and look after him and teach him with Billy, for——You tell them, Jean.”