earest father
and mother in the world," she cried, carried out of herself, and
betrayed into enthusiasm. "But what were you to do with a houseful of
girls, when one would have served to give you all the help you need,
mother, in your housekeeping and the company you see? I _have_ hated the
idea of being of no use in the world, unless I chanced to marry," ended
Annie, with a quick, impatient sigh.

"My dear, you are talking exaggerated nonsense." Mrs. Millar reproved
her daughter with unusual severity, dislodging her cap by the energy
of her remonstrance, so that Annie had to step forward promptly,
arrest it on its downward path, and set it straight before the
conversation went any further. "Nobody said such things when I was
young. I was one of a household of girls, far enough scattered now,
poor dears!"--parenthetically apostrophizing herself and her youthful
companions with unconscious pathos--"I would have liked to hear any
one say to us, or to our father and mother, that we were no good in
the world. I call it a positive sin in the young people of this
generation to be so restless and dissatisfied, and so ready to take
responsibilities upon themselves. It is a temptation of Providence to
send such calamities as the one we are suffering from. You will know
more about life when you are forced to work for yourself, and do not
set about it out of pure presumption and self-will, with a good home
to fall back upon when you are tired of your fad."

Mrs. Millar had been hurt and mortified by Annie's avowal. She had been
further nettled by the slighting reflection on a houseful of girls, made
by one of themselves, while she, their mother, the author of their
being, poor unsophisticated woman! had always been proud of her band of
bright, fair young daughters, and felt consoled by their very number for
the lack of a son.

"Come, come, mother," said Dr. Millar, "you must make allowance for the
march of ideas."

"I cannot help it," said Annie, with another quick sigh. "I suppose
girls are not so easily satisfied as they once were, or they have been
taken so far, and not far enough, out of their place. I could not have
remained content with tennis-playing and skating, or _rechauffe_ school
music, French and German, or fancy work, however artistic--not even with
teaching once a week in the Rector's Sunday-school--for my object in
life. But after the way in which things have turned out, there is no
need to discuss former views