e
eighty-three visits that were left on the list to be paid, and
"never being able to take a day to sit down for anything."

"What is it all for?" Mrs. Ripwinkley would ask, over again, the
same old burden of the world's weariness falling upon her from her
sister's life, and making her feel as if it were her business to
clear it away somehow.

"Why, to live!" Mrs. Ledwith would reply. "You've got it all to do,
you see."

"But I don't really see, Laura, where the living comes in."

Laura opens her eyes.

"_Slang_?" says she. "Where did you get hold of that?"

"Is it slang? I'm sure I don't know. I mean it."

"Well, you _are_ the funniest! You don't _catch_ anything. Even a
by-word must come first-hand from you, and mean something!"

"It seems to me such a hard-working, getting-ready-to-be, and then
not being. There's no place left for it,--because it's all place."

"Gracious me, Frank! If you are going to sift everything so, and get
back of everything! I can't live in metaphysics: I have to live in
the things themselves, amongst other people."

"But isn't it scene and costume, a good deal of it, without the
play? It may be that I don't understand, because I have not got into
the heart of your city life; but what comes of the parties, for
instance? The grand question, beforehand, is about wearing, and then
there's a retrospection of what was worn, and how people looked. It
seems to be all surface. I should think they might almost send in
their best gowns, or perhaps a photograph,--if photographs ever were
becoming,--as they do visiting cards."

"Aunt Frank," said Desire, "I don't believe the 'heart of city life'
is in the parties, or the parlors. I believe there's a great lot of
us knocking round amongst the dry goods and the furniture that never
get any further. People must be _living_, somewhere, _behind_ the
fixings. But there are so many people, nowadays, that have never
quite got fixed!"

"You might live all your days here," said Mrs. Ledwith to her
sister, passing over Desire, "and never get into the heart of it,
for that matter, unless you were born into it. I don't care so much,
for my part. I know plenty of nice people, and I like to have things
nice about me, and to have a pleasant time, and to let my children
enjoy themselves. The 'heart,' if the truth was known, is a
dreadful still place. I'm satisfied."

Uncle Titus's paper was folded across the middle; just then he
reversed the lower half;