"I've heard dad talk about her ground rents. She'll
get those again soon enough. I fancy the old tradition survives in this
town and they'll begin to draw the plans for the new city before the fire
is out. It used to burn down regularly in the fifties, dad says."
"I don't fancy we have much of anything," said Alexina cheerfully. "I think
mother has only a life interest in a part of father's estate, and I heard
her tell Maria once that she intended to leave me all she had of her own,
this place and a few thousand a year in bonds and some flats that are
probably burning up right now. I gathered from the conversation that father
didn't have much left when he died and that it was understood mother was
to look out for me. I believe he gave a lot to the others when he was
wealthy."
"Good Lord!" Aileen sighed heavily. "It won't pay your dressmakers' bills,
what with taxes and all. I won't be much better off. We'll have to marry
Rex Roberts or Bob Cheever or Frank Bascom--unless he's going up in smoke
too, Olive dear. But there are a few others."
Alexina shook her head. Her color could not rise higher for her face was
crimson from the heat; like the others she had a wet handkerchief on her
head. "There is not a grain of romance in one of them," she announced.
"Curious that the sons of the rich nearly always have round faces,
no particular features, and a tendency to bulge.
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