y being a boy."

"I guess," said Mrs. Burton, with admiring eyes full of her beauty,
"that if Mr. Ludlow could see you now, he'd be very sorry to have you a
boy!"

Cornelia blushed the splendid red of a brunette. "There it is, Mrs.
Burton! That's what's always in everybody's mind about a girl when she
wants to do something. It's what a magnificent match she'll make by her
painting or singing or acting! And if the poor fool only knew, she
needn't draw or sing or act, to do that."

"A person would think you'd been through the wars, Cornelia," said her
mother.

"I don't care! It's a shame!"

"It _is_ a shame, Nelie," said Mrs. Burton, soothingly; and she added,
unguardedly, "and I _told_ Mr. Ludlow so, when he spoke about a girl's
being happily married, as if there was no other happiness for a girl."

"Oh! _He_ thinks that, does he?"

"No, of course, he doesn't. He has a very high ideal of women; but he
was just running on, in the usual way. He told afterwards how hard the
girl art-students work in New York, and go ahead of the young men, some
of them--where they have the strength. The only thing is that so few of
them have the strength. That's what he meant."

"What do you think, mother?" asked the girl with an abrupt turn toward
her. "Do you think I'd break down?"

"I guess if you didn't break down teaching school, that you hated, you
won't break down studying art, when you love it so."

"Well," Cornelia said, with the air of putting an end to the audience,
"I guess there's no great hurry about it."

She let her mother follow Mrs. Burton out, recognizing with a smile of
scornful intelligence the ladies' wish to have the last word about her
to themselves.

VIII.

"I don't know as I ever saw her let herself go so far before," said
Mrs. Saunders, leaning on the top of the closed gate, and speaking
across it to Mrs. Burton on the outside of the fence. "I guess she's
thinking about it, pretty seriously. She's got money enough, and more
than enough."

"Well," said Mrs. Burton, "I'm going to write to Mr. Ludlow about it,
as soon as I get home, and I know I can get him to say something
that'll decide her."

"So do!" cried Mrs. Saunders, delighted.

She lingered awhile talking of other things, so as to enable herself to
meet Cornelia with due unconsciousness when she returned to her.

"Have you been talking me over all this time, mother?" the girl asked.

"We didn't hardly say a word about you," sa