by the
American School of Domestic Science, and after dinner, while the
Salisbury boys wrestled with their lessons, the three others and Owen
gathered about the drawing-room table, in the late daylight, and
thoroughly investigated the new institution and its claims. Sandy
wedged her slender little person in between the two men. Mrs. Salisbury
sat near by, reading what was handed to her. The older woman's attitude
was one of dispassionate unbelief; she smiled a benign indulgence upon
these newfangled ideas. But in her heart she felt the stirring of
feminine uneasiness and resentment. It was HER sacred region, after
all, into which these young people were probing so light-heartedly.
These were her secrets that they were exploiting; her methods were to
be disparaged, tossed aside.

The booklet, with its imposing A.S.D.S. set out fair and plain upon a
brown cover, was exhaustive. Its frontispiece was a portrait of one
Eliza Slocumb Holley, founder of the school, and on its back cover it
bore the vignetted photograph of a very pretty graduate, in apron and
cap, with her broom and feather duster. In between these two pictures
were pages and pages of information, dozens of pictures. There were
delightful long perspectives of model kitchens, of vegetable gardens,
orchards, and dairies. There were pictures of girls making jam, and
sterilizing bottles, and arranging trays for the sick. There were girls
amusing children and making beds. There were glimpses of the model
flats, built into the college buildings, with gas stoves and
dumb-waiters. And there were the usual pictures of libraries, and
playgrounds, and tennis courts.

"Such nice-looking girls!" said Sandy.

"Oh, Mother says that they are splendid girls," Owen said, bashfully
eager, "just the kind that go in for trained nursing, you know, or
stenography, or bookkeeping."

"They must be a solid comfort, those girls," said Mrs. Salisbury,
leaning over to read certain pages with the others. "'First year,'" she
read aloud. "'Care of kitchen, pantry, and
utensils--fire-making--disposal of refuse--table-setting--service--care
of furniture--cooking with gas--patent
sweepers--sweeping--dusting--care of
silver--bread--vegetables--puddings--'"

"Help!" said Sandy. "It sounds like the essence of a thousand Mondays!
No one could possibly learn all that in one year."

"It's a long term, eleven months," her father said, deeply interested.
"That's not all of the first year, eith