d up? _There_ is where, if you know it, dear parlor
people, the up-side, by just living, can so graciously and
generously be always helping the down.)

Bel read:--

"'What of that second great fire that was prophesied to come before
Christmas?'--'Peaches.'"

"You've got to get that word into the answer, you see and it hasn't
the very least thing to do with it! Now see:--

'A prophet, after the event,
No startling wisdom teaches;
A second fire would scarce be sent
To gratify the morbid bent
That for fresh horror reaches.
But, friend, do tell me why you went
And mixed it up with _peaches_!'

It's great fun! And sometimes it's lovely, real poetry. Kate,
you've got to give me some words and questions, I'm going to take to
Crambo."

"You'll have to mix it up with dish-washing," said Elise.
"Dish-washing and dust,--you can't get rid of them!"

"We do, though!" said Kate, alertly, jumping up and beginning to
fetch the plates and cups from the dumb-waiter. "Here, Bel!" And she
tossed three or four long, soft, clean towels over to her from the
shelf beside the china.

"And about that dusting," she went on, after the noise of the hot
water rushing from the faucet was over, and she began dropping the
things carefully down through the cloud of steam into the great pan
full of suds, and fishing them up again with a fork and a little
mop,--"about the dusting, I didn't finish. It's a work of art to
dust Mrs. Scherman's parlor. Don't you think there's a pleasure in
handling and touching up and setting out all those pretty things?
Don't they get to be a part of our having, too? Don't I take as much
comfort in her fernery as she does? I know every little green and
woolly loop that comes up in it. It's the only sense there is in
things. There's a picture there, of cows coming home, down a green
lane, and the sun striking through, and lighting up the gravel, and
a patch of green grass, and the red hair on the cows' necks. You
think you just catch it _coming_, suddenly, through the trees, when
you first look up at it. And you go right into a little piece of the
country, and stand there. Mr. Scherman doesn't own that lane, or
those cows, though he bought the picture. All he owns is what he
gets by the signs; and I get that, every day, for the dusting! There
are things to be earned and shared where people _live_, that you
can't earn in the sewing-s