l of
tea-muffins to rise, and had brought up a fresh pitcher of ice-water
into Desire's room, put on her bonnet and went over to Aspen Street
for an hour.

Down in the kitchen, at Mrs. Ripwinkley's, they were having a nice
time.

Their girl had gone. Since Luclarion left, they had fallen into that
Gulf-stream which nowadays runs through everybody's kitchen. Girls
came, and saw, and conquered in their fashion; they muddled up, and
went away.

The nice times were in the intervals when they _had_ gone away.

Mrs. Ripwinkley did not complain; it was only her end of the
"stump;" why should she expect to have a Luclarion Grapp to serve
her all her life?

This last girl had gone as soon as she found out that Sulie Praile
was "no relation, and didn't anyways belong there, but had been took
in." She "didn't go for to come to work in an _Insecution_. She had
always been used to first-class private families."

Girls will not stand any added numbers, voluntarily assumed, or even
involuntarily befalling; they will assist in taking up no new
responsibilities; to allow things to remain as they are, and cannot
help being, is the depth of their condescension,--the extent of what
they will put up with. There must be a family of some sort, of
course, or there would not be a "place;" that is what the family is
made for; but it must be established, no more to fluctuate; that is,
you may go away, some of you, if you like, or you may die; but
nobody must come home that has been away, and nobody must be born.
As to anybody being "took in!" Why, the girl defined it; it was not
being a family, but an _Insecution_.

So the three--Diana, and Hazel, and Sulie--were down in the kitchen;
Mrs. Ripwinkley was busy in the dining-room close by; there was a
berry-cake to be mixed up for an early tea. Diana was picking over
the berries, Hazel was chopping the butter into the flour, and Sulie
on a low cushioned seat in a corner--there was one kept ready for
her in every room in the house, and Hazel and Diana carried her
about in an "arm-chair," made of their own clasped hands and wrists,
wherever they all wanted to go,--Sulie was beating eggs.

Sulie did that so patiently; you see she had no temptation to jump
up and run off to anything else. The eggs turned, under her
fingers, into thick, creamy, golden froth, fine to the last possible
divisibility of the little air-bubbles.

They could not do without Sulie now. They had had her for "all
wint