e way of new
domestic ideas. "And a part of it is that the houses aren't built,
or the ways of living planned, for 'our girls,' exactly. Our girls
aren't happy in underground kitchens and sky bedrooms."

"I don't know. They might as well be underground as in some of those
close, crowded shops. And their bedrooms can't be much to compare,
certain. I'm afraid they like the crowds best. If they wanted to,
and would work in, and try, they might contrive. Things fix
themselves accordingly, after a while. Somebody's got to begin. I
can't help thinking about it."

Desire smiled.

"Your thinking may be a first sign of good times, little Bel," she
said. "Think on. That is the way everything begins; with a
restlessness in some one or two heads about it. Perhaps that is just
what you have come down from New Hampshire for."

"I don't know," said Bel again. She began a good many of her
reflective, suggestive little speeches with that hesitating feeler
into the fog of social perplexity she essayed. "They're just as bad
up there, now. They all get away to the towns, and the trades, and
the stores They won't go into the houses; and they might have such
good places!"

"You came yourself, you see?"

"Yes. I wasn't contented. And things were particular with me. And I
had Aunt Blin. I don't want to go back, either. But I can see how it
is."

"Things are particular with each one, in some sort or another. That
is what settles it, I suppose, and ought to. The only thing is to be
sure that it is a _right_ particular that does it; that we don't let
in any wrong particular, anywhere. For you, Dorothy, I don't believe
shop-life is the thing. You have found it out. Why not change at
once? There is the machine at home, and Ray is going to be busy in
Neighbor Street. Won't her work naturally come to you?"

"There isn't much of it, and it is so uncertain. The shops take up
all the bulk of work nowadays; everything is wholesale; and I don't
want to go into the rooms, if I can help it. I don't like days'
work, either. The fact is, I want a quiet place, and the same
things. I like my own machine. I would go with it into a family, if
I could have my own room, and be nice, and not have to eat with
careless, common servants in a dirty kitchen. Mother would spare
me,--to a real good situation; and I would come home Sundays."

"I see. What you want is somewhere, of course. Wouldn't you
advertise?"

"Would _you_?"

"Yes, I think I would. Say