and her amount of endearing gush-power, and she had
at least six girl friends to whom she sent weekly epistles of some
half-dozen sheets in length, beginning, each one of them, with "My
dearest ----" and ending "Your devoted Edith."

As Edith and her mother quietly read, and ate grapes, and lolled in a
delightfully feminine way, voices were heard,--Mae's and Norman's. They
were in the middle of a conversation. "Yes," Mae was saying, "you
do away with individuality altogether nowadays, with your dreadful
classifications. It is all the same from daffodils up to women."

"How do we classify women, pray?"

"In the mind of man," began Mae, as if she were reading, "there are
three classes of women; the giddy butterflies, the busy bees, and the
woman's righters. The first are pretty and silly; the second, plain
and useful; the third, mannish and odious. The first wear long trailing
dresses and smile at you while waltzing, the second wear aprons and give
you apple-dumplings, and the third want your manly prerogatives, your
dress-coat, your money, and your vote. Flirt with the giddy butterflies,
your first love was one. First loves always are. Marry the busy bee.
Your mother was a busy bee. Mothers always are. And keep on the other
side of the street from the woman's righter as long as you can. Alas!
your daughter will be one."

"Well, isn't there any classifying on the other side? Aren't there
horsemen and sporting men and booky men, in the feminine mind?"

"Perhaps so. There certainly are the fops, and nowadays this terrible
army of reformers and radicals, of whom my brother Albert here is the
best known example."

"What is it?" asked Albert, looking up abstractedly from his book, for
he and Eric had sauntered up the stairs too, by this time.

"They are the creatures," continued Mae, "who scorn joys and idle
pleasures. They deal with the good of the many and the problems of the
universe, and step solemnly along to that dirge known as the March of
Progress. And what do they get for it all? Something like this. Put down
your book, I'm going to prophesy," and Mae backed resolutely up against
the railing and held her floating scarfs and veils in a bunch at her
throat, while she prophesied in this way:

"Behold me, direct lineal descendant of Albert Madden, speaking to my
children in the year 1995: 'What, children, want amusement? Want to see
the magic lantern to note the effects of light? Alas! how frivolous.
Listen, chil