dress up and look pretty? Perhaps she paints;
that is fashionable now."

"Paints! No, never! 'Her cheeks are like the rose, that in the garden
blooms,' and so on, but for all that, I am sure she does not paint!"

"Paint pictures, I mean! You know I did! Of course, I never meant her face!
But what sort of work is she fond of? What are her talents? I am sure you
must know that!"

"Well, now, I really don't believe I ever asked her what she likes to do
best, and she is so unselfish that it would not be fair to judge her by
what she is actually doing when I happen to see her, for I am sure that
some of her self-imposed tasks are far from pleasant to her. I have heard
her called her mother's right hand. I suppose you know what that means,
Miss Gussie?"

Dexie raised her eyes for one moment, but dropped them when she saw
Traverse looking at her intently. She was glad it was not a fashionable
belle he had chosen for his wife, for she knew what a position she must
hold if she was "her mother's right hand." That term told a long story to
one initiated into its duties.

"But I am not going to let you off with such a general answer, Mr.
Traverse," was Gussie's persistent reply, "so tell me at least _one_ thing
that you have seen her engaged in when you called upon her."

"Well, really, Miss Gussie, you fairly puzzle me, for I can't think of the
name of the work which I see her at most frequently," and he looked up as
if reflecting on the matter; then glancing over to Dexie, who sat by the
side table with a mending basket near, he added, "Oh! now I remember it. It
is 'family mending,' I believe you call it. You just put me in mind of it,
Miss Dexie," as Dexie raised an astonished pair of eyes to his face.

A sudden thought struck her, though she instantly refuted the idea, and
despised herself for entertaining it for a fraction of a moment; but Guy
had witnessed the flush that spread over her face as he uttered the words.

"Oh! how poetic!" and Gussie laughed heartily. "She must be, like Dexie,
also, the housekeeper of the family, or at least the eldest daughter in
it."

"Why, I thought you were twins, Miss Gussie," said Mr. Traverse, in
surprise.

"Well, so we are as to age, but Dexie is years older than I am in other
things. She has left the vanities and other worldly things behind her years
ago."

"I wish you could see the fine affair that Dexie works at when she sits up
with me at night. Where is it, Dexie? Bring