p, slowly. "He seemed mightily
pleased with what Asenath Scherman said."

"O, she's pretty, and funny; it makes no difference what she says;
people are always pleased."

"We might dismiss one girl this winter," said Mrs. Ledwith, "and
board in some cheap country place next summer. I dare say we could
save it in the year's round; the difference, I mean. When you
weren't actually travelling, it wouldn't cost more than to have you
here,--dress and all.

"They wouldn't need to have a new thing," said Glossy.

"Those people out at Z---- want to buy the house. I've a great mind
to coax Grant to sell, and take a slice right out, and send them,"
said Mrs. Ledwith, eagerly. She was always eager to accomplish the
next new thing for her children; and, to say the truth, did not much
consider herself. And so far as they had ever been able, the
Ledwiths had always been rather easily given to "taking the slice
right out."

The Megilps had had a little legacy of two or three thousand
dollars, and were quite in earnest in their plans, this time, which
had been talk with them for many years.

"Those poor Fayerwerses!" said Asenath to her husband, walking home.
"Going out now, after the cheap European living of a dozen years
ago! The ghost always goes over on the last load. I wonder at Mrs.
Megilp. She generally knows better."

"She'll do," said Frank Scherman. "If the Fayerwerses stick
anywhere, as they probably will, she'll hitch on to the Fargo's, and
turn up at Jerusalem. And then there are to be the Ledwiths, and
their 'little slice.'"

"O, dear! what a mess people do make of living!" said Asenath.

Uncle Titus trudged along down Dorset Street with his stick under
his arm.

"Try 'em! Find 'em out!" he repeated to himself. "That's what
Marmaduke said. Try 'em with this,--try 'em with that; a good deal,
or a little; having and losing, and wanting. That's what the Lord
does with us all; and I begin to see He has a job of it!"

The house was sold, and Agatha and Florence went.

It made home dull for poor Desire, little as she found of real
companionship with her elder sisters. But then she was always
looking for it, and that was something. Husbands and wives, parents
and children, live on upon that, through years of repeated
disappointments, and never give up the expectation of that which is
somewhere, and which these relations represent to them, through all
their frustrated lives.

That is just why. It _is_ somewhere.