nd Madam Royall's beautiful house
and your Uncle Win. It must be like reading some interesting book. Oh,
I wish I could come and stay a whole week with you!"

"A week!" Doris laughed. "Why, you couldn't see it all in a month, or a
year. Every day I am finding something new about Boston, and Miss
Recompense remembers so many queer stories. I'm going to tell her all
about you. I know she'll be real nice about your coming. Everything is
as Uncle Win says, but he always asks her."

Doris could make her little descriptions very vivid and attractive. At
first Elizabeth replied by exclamations, then there was quite a silence.
Doris looked at her. She was leaning against the post of the porch and
her needles no longer clicked, though she held the stocking in its
place. The poor child had fallen fast asleep. The moonlight made her
look so ghostly pale that at first Doris was startled.

The three ladies came out, but Elizabeth never stirred. When her mother
spied her she shook her sharply by the shoulder.

"Poor child!" exclaimed Mrs. King. "Elizabeth, put up your work and go
to bed."

"If you are too sleepy to knit, put up your work and go out and knead on
the bread a spell. Sarah always gets it lumpy if you don't watch her,"
said Mrs. Manning.

Elizabeth gathered up her ball and went without a word.

"I'll knit for you," said Betty, intercepting her, and taking the work.

"Mary, you will kill that child presently, and when you have buried her
I hope you will be satisfied to give Ruth a chance for her life,"
exclaimed Mrs. King indignantly.

"I can't afford to bring my children up in idleness, and if I could, I
hope I have too great a sense of responsibility and my duty toward them.
I was trained to work, and I've been thankful many a time that _I_
didn't have to waste grown-up years in learning."

"We didn't work like that. Then father had given some years to his
country and we _were_ poor. You have no need, and it is cruel to make
such a slave of a child. She does a woman's work."

"I am quite capable of governing my own family, Electa, and I think I
know what is best and right for them. We can't afford to bring up fine
ladies and teach them French and other trumpery. If Elizabeth is fitted
for a plain farmer's wife, that is all I ask. She won't be likely to
marry a President or a foreign lord, and if we have a few hundred
dollars to start her in life, maybe she won't object."

"You had better give her a little c