at covert suggestion and encouragement, she stopped, leaving
the lead to Kate again.

Kate Sencerbox was as earnest as a judge.

"How much to the others?" said she.

"Three dollars each."

"That's ten dollars a week. Now, if you only had Bel and me, and
paid us three or three and a half a piece, couldn't you put
out--say, five dollars' worth of fine washing? Wouldn't the nurse's
board and wages come to that? And I'd engage to help with the baby
as much as you say you get helped now."

"But you would want some time to yourself?"

"Babies can't be awake all the time. I guess I should get it. I've
never had anything but evenings, so far. The thing is, Mrs.
Scherman, if I can try this anywhere, I can try it here. I don't
suppose people have got things fixed just as they would have been if
there'd always been a home all over the house. If we go to live with
anybody, we mean to make it living _in_, not living _out_. And we
shall find out ways as we go along,--all round. If you're willing,
we are. It's Bel's idea, not mine; though she's let me take it to
myself, and do the talking. I suppose because she thought I should
be the hardest of the two to be suited. And so I am. I didn't
believe in it at first. But I begin to see into it; and I've got
interested. I'd like to work it out on this line, now. Then I shall
know."

There were not many more words after that; there did not need to be.
Mrs. Scherman engaged them to come, at once, for three dollars and a
half a week each.

"It's a kind of a kitchen gospel," said Bel Bree, as they walked up
Summit Street. "And it's got to come from the _girls_. What can the
poor ladies do, up in their nurseries, with their big houses, full
of everything, on their hands, and the servants dictating and
clearing out? They can't say their souls are their own. They can't
plan their work, or say how many they'll have to do it. The more
they have, the more they'll have to have. It ain't Mr. and Mrs.
Scherman, and those two little children,--or two and a half,--that
makes all the to-do. Every girl they get makes the dinners more, and
the Mondays heavier. Why, the family grows faster down-stairs than
up, with a nurse for every baby! Think of the tracking and
travelling, the wear and tear. Every one makes work for one, and
dirt for two. It's taking in a regiment down below, and laying the
trouble all off on to the poor little last baby up-stairs! And the
ladies don't see through it. They just