Dear Queenie,

I didn't have enough wine glasses for all the guests at a party I gave, so I borrowed some from my sister. One of the guests dropped one of her glasses and broke it.

When my sister found out she had a fit. She said the glasses were a very expensive set that she had received as a gift.

Now she wants me to buy her a new, just as expensive, set of six glasses. I think it would be enough to buy just one glass about the same value as the one that got broken.

Queenie, who is right?—All cut up about it

Dear All cut up,

I have quoted Shakespeare on this subject before: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be ..." Somehow it always leads to some kind of trouble.

Instead of borrowing breakables from anyone, you would have been wiser to go out and buy yourself an additional set of glasses for whatever price you could afford. Then, if any were broken you still would have had the rest for future use and no hard feelings.

Furthermore, your sister was foolish to lend you such valuable (to her, at least) breakables. Surely she had some less valuable (and hopefully less fragile) glassware you could have used.

But all that is 20/20 hindsight.

It is not fair for your sister to expect you to replace the complete set of glasses when she still has five left. Tell her you will buy her one expensive glass to round out her set, or a set of six glasses at a price you can afford – her choice.