, in fresh shapes, just now, when things next for the
Holabirds were nearer next than ever before.

"We must have Delia Waite again soon, if we can get her," said mother,
one morning, when we were all quietly sitting in her room, and
she was cutting out some shirts for Stephen. "All our changes and
interruptions have put back the sewing so lately."

"We ought not to have been idle so much," said Barbara. "We've been a
family of grasshoppers all summer."

"Well, the grasshopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it,"
said Mrs. Holabird. "Only we must have Delia for a week now, and be
busy."

"If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!" said Rosamond.

"Why don't you try the girl Mrs. Hadden has, mother? She goes right
into the kitchen with the other servants."

"I don't believe our 'other servants' would know what to do with her,"
said Barbara. "There's always such a crowd in our kitchen."

"Barbara, you're a plague!"

"Yes. I'm the thorn in the flesh in this family, lest it should be
exalted above measure; and like Saint Paul, I magnify mine office."

"In the way we live," said Mrs. Holabird, "it is really more
convenient to let a seamstress come right to table with us; and
besides, you know what I think about it. It is a little breath of life
to a girl like that; she gets something that we can give as well as
not, and that helps her up. It comes naturally, as it cannot come with
'other servants.' She sits with us all day; her work is among ladies,
and with them; she gets something so far, even in the midst of
measuring and gorings, that common housemaids cannot get; why
shouldn't she be with us when we can leave off talk of measures and
gores, and get what Ruth calls the 'very next'? Delia Waite is too
nice a girl to be put into the kitchen to eat with Katty, in her
'crowd.'"

"But it seems to set us down; it seems common in us to be so ready to
be familiar with common people. More in us, because we do live
plainly. If Mrs. Hadden or Mrs. Marchbanks did it, it might seem kind
_without_ the common. I think they ought to begin such things."

"But then if they don't? Very likely it would be far more inconvenient
for them; and not the same good either, because it _would_ be, or
seem, a condescension. We are the 'very next,' and we must be content
to be the step we are."

"It's the other thing with us,--con-_as_cension,--isn't it, mother? A
step up for somebody, and no step down for anybody. Mrs.