ed to her that there was no possible excuse for any cooking
short of the best.

"Why should a beefsteak be scorched?" she would ask protestingly. "It is
only a question of attention and honesty. Why should the aroma be boiled
out of a pot of coffee? Again, it is only a matter of attention and
honesty." That was her attitude always, and the servant who hoped to
please her must ceaselessly recognize it.

Sometimes her aunt would plead for a little lenity in these matters, but
the girl would grant none. "The servants are employed to do things
right. Why should I let them do things wrong? They profess to have skill
in such work. Surely, they ought to do it as well as I can, who have no
skill. And besides, it wouldn't be good for them to let them off with
less than the best. They would degenerate. They have their living to
make by work, and the better work they do the better work they can do."

A few years later the aunt's husband met with misfortune and went to the
West. Presently he died, and Barbara's aunt was widowed and
impoverished at one and the same time.

Then it was that Barbara rose in the strength of her practical wisdom,
and met the emergency with all of character that she had built up. Her
aunt was helpless, so Barbara took matters into her own hands. She was
nearly twenty years old then, and her capacities as a housekeeper had
ripened through use until she felt modestly confident of herself.
"Besides," she argued, "there is nobody else to do things if I don't."

She persuaded her aunt to take a little house with a big sunny dining
room, and there she offered to the young bachelors of the town--in her
aunt's name--better meals than they could get at the pretentious hotel,
and she charged them scarcely more than half the hotel rate.

One by one the best of the young men in the town were drawn to Barbara's
table until the dining room was filled. After that anyone who wished to
join the circle must put his name upon a waiting list, and bide his time
till there should be a vacancy. For Barbara held that it would be unjust
to crowd present boarders in order to take new ones, and she hated all
injustice. The waiting list was always long, for the fame of Barbara's
table was great.

When her friends suggested an increase in her charges, she promptly said
them nay. "I'm charging enough," she answered. "The gentlemen pay us
enough to keep auntie and me comfortable. They have to work hard for
their money, and it wo