“Again!” cried Roberta in alarm.

“Again, and it seems to be a snorter.”

Henry rolled over on his back and stared at the sky.

“We’re hopeless,” he said to Roberta. “We live by windfalls and they won’t go on for ever. What will happen to us, Roberta?”

“Charlot,” said Roberta, “thinks you might have a poultry farm.”

“She and Daddy both think so,” said Henry. “What will happen? We'll order masses of hens, — and I can’t tell you how much I dislike the sensation of feathers, — we’ll build expensive modern chicken-houses, we’ll buy poultrified garments for ourselves, and for six months we’ll all be eaten up with the zeal of the chicken-house and then we’ll employ someone to do the work and we won’t have paid for the outlay.”

“Well,” said Roberta unhappily, “why don’t you say so?”

“Because I’m like all the rest of my family,” said Henry. “What do you think of us, Robin? You’re such a composed little person with your smooth head and your watchfulness.”

“That sounds smug and beastly.”

“It isn’t meant to. You’ve got a sort of Jane Eyreishness about you. You’ll grow up into a Jane Eyre, I daresay, if you grow at all. Don’t you sometimes think we’re pretty hopeless?”

“I like you.”

“I know. But you must criticize a little. What’s to be done? What, for instance, ought I to do?”

“I suppose,” said Roberta, “you ought to get a job.”

“What sort of job? What can I do in New Zealand or anywhere else for a matter of that?”

“Ought you to have a profession?”

“What sort of profession?”

“Well,” said Roberta helplessly, “What would you like?”

“I’m sick at the sight of blood so I couldn’t be a doctor. I lose my temper when I argue, so I couldn’t be a lawyer, and I hate the poor, so I couldn’t be a parson.”