s if my mind wasn't pretty
thoroughly formed at this time of day--and get me to protest against
the tyranny of the male sex. I didn't see that the male sex was
troublin' her much; but I signed a petition she got up to send to the
Governor or somebody, asking for the right to vote. There was an
opposition society that didn't want the ballot, and they got up
another petition."

"And you signed that too, I expect," laughed Donald.

"Sure thing, I did. I'm not narrow-minded, and I like to be obliging.
Then she tried what she called slummin', which, as near as I can see,
means walkin' in where you 'aint wanted, because people are poorer
than you are, and leavin' little tracts that nobody reads, and currant
jelly that nobody eats, and clothes that nobody can wear. But an
Irishman shied a cabbage at her head while she was tryin' to convince
him that the bath-tub wasn't really a coal bin, and that his mental
attitude was hindside before.

"Then she got to be a Theosophist, and used to sit in her room
upstairs projecting her astral body out of the window into the back
yard, and pulling it in again like a ball on a rubber string--just for
practice, you know. But that attack didn't last long."

"She seems to be a very versatile young woman; but she doesn't stick
to one thing very long."

"A rolling stone gathers no moss, you know," Mrs. Burke replied.
"That's one of the advantages of bein' a rolling stone. It must be
awful to get mossy; and there isn't any moss on Virginia Bascom,
whatever faults she may have--not a moss."

For a moment Mrs. Burke was silent, and then she began:

"Once Virginia got to climbin' her family tree, to find out where her
ancestors came from. She thought that possibly they might be noblemen.
But I guess there wasn't very much doin' up the tree until she got
down to New York, and paid a man to tell her. She brought back an
illuminated coat of arms with a lion rampantin' on top; but she was
the same old Virginia still. What do I care about my ancestors! It
doesn't make no difference to me. I'm just myself anyway, no matter
how you figure; and I'm a lot more worried about where I'm goin' to,
than where I came from. Virginia's got a book called 'Who's Who,' that
she's always studying. But the only thing that matters, it seems to
me, is Who's What."

"I wonder she hasn't married," remarked Donald, innocently.

"Ah, that's the trouble. She's like a thousand others without no
special occupation in l