Matilda Meane only knew which side--and where--bread _was_
buttered! She's living on 'relief,' yet; and she buys cream-cakes
for dinner, and peanuts for tea! But, Bel, what were you up-stairs
for? I thought you was queen o' the kitchen!"

"Kate gives me her chance, sometimes. We change about, to make
things even. The best of it is in the up-stairs work, and waiting at
table is the first-best chance of all. You see, you 'take it in at
the pores,' as the man says in the play."

"Tea and oysters?" said Elise, with an exclamatory interrogation.

"You know better. See here, Elise. You don't half believe in this
experiment, though you appreciate the muffins. But it isn't just
loaves and fishes. There's a _living_ in the world, and a way to
earn it, besides clothes, and bread and butter. If you want it, you
can choose your work nearest to where the living is. And wherever
else it may or mayn't be, it _is_ in houses, and round tea-tables
like this."

"Other people's living,--for you to look at and wait on," said
Elise. "I like to be independent."

"They can't keep it back from us, if they wanted to," said Bel. "And
you _can't_ be independent; there's no such thing in the world. It's
all give and take."

"How about 'other folks' dust,' Kate? Do you remember?"

"There's only one place, I guess, after all," said Kate, "where you
can be shut up with nothing but your own dust!"

"Sharper than ever, Kate Sencerbox! I guess you _do_ get rubbed up!"

"Mr. Stalworth is there to-night," said Bel. "He tells as good
stories as he writes. And they've been talking about Tyndall's
Essays, and the spectroscope. Mrs. Scherman asked questions that I
don't believe she'd any particular need of answers to, herself; and
she stopped me once when I was going out of the room for something.
I knew by her look that she wanted me to hear."

"If they want you to hear, why don't they ask you to sit down and
hear comfortably?" said Elise Mokey, who had got her social
science--with a _little_ warp in it--from Boffin's Bower.

"Because it's my place to stand, at that time," said Bel, stoutly;
"and I shouldn't be comfortable out of my place. I haven't earned a
place like Mrs. Scherman's yet, or married a man that has earned it
for me. There are proper things for everybody. It isn't always
proper for Mrs. Scherman to sit down herself; or for Mr. Scherman to
keep his hat on. It's the knowing what's proper that sets people
really up; it _never_ puts