go away and do something, John Coulson," she said to
her brother-in-law on an afternoon which he and Annie and the baby were
spending at The Dale. "I'm no use here. I have horrible suspicions
that I'm a cumberer of the ground."

"You're surely not going to develop into a new woman, Betsey," said
John Coulson with alarm. "One never knows which way the wild streak is
going to shoot off next."

Elizabeth was kneeling by the old dining-room sofa, upon which the
Vision rolled from side to side, waving his bare pink toes in the air.
She had just been busy saying over for the fifth time, "Dis 'itty pig
went to market," and had evoked such gurgles and coos and giggles from
the owner of the "'itty pigs," that it was hard to give her attention
elsewhere.

"Maybe I am," she said at last, looking up at him with serious gray
eyes. "I don't know. But I do know I don't want to sit on a cushion
and sew a fine seam forever and ever like the lady in Baby's book. The
rest are working hard. I wonder if I couldn't earn my living somehow."

John Coulson looked at her gravely. He generally treated his young
sister-in-law as a joke, but evidently she wanted to be taken seriously.

"What do you think you would like to be?" he asked gently.

Elizabeth chucked the Vision under the chin, rolled him from side to
side, and kissed each separate dimple in his plump hand before
answering.

"Oh, I don't care. I'd just as soon be one thing as another."

"Well, well," John Coulson's eyes twinkled again. "Have you no
ambition at all, Betsey Bobbett?"

Elizabeth looked across at him, her eyes half-veiled by her long
lashes, in that way she had when she wished to hide her thoughts. The
forced reticence of her childhood had grown to be a fixed habit, and
for all her love for her brother-in-law, which had grown steadily with
the years, she could not confide in him. For Elizabeth had ambitions,
though her aunt would have found it hard to believe in them. They were
quite as radiant as her old dreams of Joan of Arc, though different.
They were such conflicting aspirations, too, that she was puzzled by
them herself. She was filled with vague golden dreams of one day
overturning the world and righting all wrongs, and making all Eppies
rich and Susies happy, and giving all Mother MacAllisters their
rewards. And side by side with these glorious visions lived the
desire, very real and very deep, to be like Estella Raymond and have a
half-doz