-when Harry and Ernest clattered up to their mother's rooms. They
could be boys still. They might throw open the house-doors with a
shout and halloo, and fling away caps and boots with no more than an
uncared-for reprimand. But Violet must go noiselessly through the dark
entry, and, as she turned to close the door that let her into the
parlor, she was greeted by Aunt Martha's "Now do shut the door quietly!"
As she lowered the latch without any sound, she would say to herself,
"Why is it that boys must have all the fun, and girls all the work?"
She felt as if she shut out liberty and put on chains. Her work began
then,--to lay the tea-table, to fetch and carry as Aunt Martha ordered.
All this was pleasanter than the quiet evening that followed, because
she liked the occupation and motion. But to be quiet the whole evening,
that was a trial! After the tea-things were cleared away, she would
sit awhile by the stove, imagining all sorts of excitements in the
combustion within; but she could not keep still long without letting a
clatter of shovel and tongs, or some vigorous blows of the poker, show
what a glorious drum she thought the stove would make. Or if Aunt Martha
suggested her unloved and neglected dolls, she would retire to the
corner with them inevitably to come back in disgrace. Either the large
wooden-headed doll came noisily down from the high-backed chair, where
she had been placed as the Maid of Saragossa, or a suspicious smell of
burning arose, when Joan of Arc really did take fire from the candle on
her imaginary funeral-pile. Knitting was no more of a sedative, though
for many years it had stilled Aunt Martha's nerves. It was singular how
the cat contrived always to get hold of Violet's ball of yarn and keep
it, in spite of Violet's activity and the jolly chase she had for it all
round the room, over chairs and under tables. Even her father, during
these long evenings, often looked up over his round spectacles, through
which he was perusing a volume of the "Encyclopedia," to wonder if
Violet could never be quiet.

As she grew up, there was activity enough in her life, through which her
temperament could let off its steam: a large house to be cared for and
kept in order, some of the lodgers to be waited upon, and Aunt Martha,
with her failing strength, more exacting than ever. Her evenings now
were her happy times, for she frequently spent them in Mrs. Schroder's
room. One of the economies in the Schroders' li