," she went on, "that little sprig of a Paul Smith called on Con, and
Mother engineered me out of the room, and said something laughingly to
Richie and Ted about not wanting to stand in Con's way, 'one old maid
was enough in a family!'"

"Maddening! Yes, I know," Julia said, laughing and shaking her head.
"I've heard her a hundred times!"

"Of course it's all love and kisses, now," Barbara added, "and Francis
is a bold, big thief, and how can she give up her dear big girl--"

"Oh, Barbara, don't be bitter!"

"Well," Barbara flung her head back as if she tossed the subject aside,
"I suppose I am bitter! And why you're not, Ju, I can't understand, for
you never had one tenth the chance I did!"

"No," Julia assented gravely, "I never did. If my mother had kept me
with her--and she could have done it--if she hadn't left my father--he
loved me so--it would all have been different. Mothers are strange,
Babby, they have so much power--or seem to! It seems to me that one
could do so much to straighten things out for the poor little baby
brains; this is worth while, and this isn't worth while, and so on!
Suppose"--Julia poured herself a fresh cup of tea, and leaned back
comfortably in her chair--"suppose you had young daughters, Bab," said
she, "what would you do, differently from your mother, I mean?"

"Oh, I don't know!" Barbara said, "only it seems funny that mothers
can't help their daughters more. Half my life is lived now, probably,
yet Mother goes right on theorizing, she--she doesn't get down to _facts_,
somehow! I don't know--"

"It all comes down to this," Julia said briskly, as Barbara's voice
trailed into silence, "sitting around and waiting for some one to ask
her to marry him is not a sufficiently absorbing life work for the
average young woman!"

"She isn't expected to do anything else," Barbara added, "except--
attract. And it isn't as if she could be deciding in her own mind about
it; the decision is in _his_ mind: if he chooses he can ask her; if he
doesn't, all right! It's a _shame_--it's a shame, I say, not to give her a
more dignified existence than that!"

"Yes, but, Bab, your mother couldn't have put you into a shop to sell
ribbons, or made a telephone girl of you!"

"No; my brothers didn't sell ribbons, or go on a telephone board,
either. But I don't see why I shouldn't have studied medicine, like Jim
and Richie, or gone into the office at the works in Yolo City, like
Ned."

"Yes, but, Babby