on! Go on! Who wants to hear about tablecloth patterns, and
licking threads? Keep to your point, if you have a point to stick to!
If Rowena's is going to give you lessons, she'd better begin by teaching
you not to be such a bore. You go prosing on and on--"

"I don't. I'm not. Bore yourself! 'Twas most intrusting!" insisted
Maud, stolidly. "They were sort of talking about us all, in a sort of
way as if I couldn't understand, and I understood all the time, and they
said we were rejuiced, and I asked you a simple question what it meant.
When you're perlite to other people, other people should be perlite to
you in return."

"All right, Maud, keep calm, keep calm! You reduce a thing by taking
something from it. We are reduced because something--a great deal--has
been taken away from our income, and what remains is not enough to go
round. I expect the second housemaid will be sent packing, and you will
have to make the beds."

Maud squealed with dismay, then with a gleam of shrewdness nodded her
head, and prophesied sagely:

"It would be worse for you than me if I did! I'd make them full of
crumples. I'd get hold of the ends of the clothes, and _Hop_ them down
all together like Mary does when it's her Sunday out, and she's in a
hurry. _Then_ you'd be in a rage when you got in and your toes stuck
out!"

"I'll make the beds!" announced Dreda, graciously. "I think all girls
ought to learn to be domestic, and there's a real art in making beds.
I've often thought how much better I could do it than any servant we
have had. It's the trained intellect, I suppose. (I do _hate_ you,
Rowena, when you sneer like that!) F'rinstance--I like my blankets just
up to my chin, and if I tell Mary ten times a day, it's always the
same--she doubles them down till you are all hunkley round the neck.
Then that leaves less to tuck in at the bottom, and if you have a
nightmare and kick, there you are with your feet sticking out in the
cold, and have to get up and tuck them in, when you want to sleep! And
I can't endure creases. I like the under sheet stretched as tight as
tight. Everyone likes a bed made in a special way, and it _ought_ to be
done. Think of the time one spends in bed! A third of one's life.
It's a shame not to be comfortable. I should be an expert in bed-
making. I'd keep a book to remind me of everyone's special fancies--"

"And lose it the second day! Play all the experiments you like, but
leave my