er
people's. Why don't you care about it?"

"It would be a great deal of fuss; and no use."

"No use! Yes, it would; just the use I am telling you. It would
introduce you to the best society."

"But I am not going to live in England all my life, mother."

"How do you know?" very sharply. "How do you know where you are going
to live?"

"Why, father won't stay there always, will he?"

"I am sure I don't know what your father will take into his head. I may
be called to end my days in Japan. But you--Look here; has your aunt
made you as old-fashioned as she is herself?"

"How, mother?"

"I am sure I can't tell how! There are ever so many ways. There's the
benevolent sort, and there's the devout sort, and there's the
puritanical sort. Has she put it into your head that it is good to be a
hermit and separate yourself from the rest of the world?"

Dolly laughed and denied that charge.

"She's a very good woman, I suppose; but she is ridiculous," Mrs.
Copley went on. "Don't be ridiculous, whatever you are. You can't do
any good to anybody by being ridiculous."

"But people may call things ridiculous, that are not ridiculous,
mother."

"Don't let them _call_ you ridiculous, then," said Mrs. Copley,
chopping her words in the way people do when impatience has the
management of them. "You had better not. The world is pretty apt to be
right."

Dolly let the subject go, and let it go from her mind too; giving
herself to the delights of her chickens, and the calf, and the nests of
eggs in the hay mow. More than half the time she was dancing about out
of doors; as gay as the daffodils that were just opening, as delicate
as the Van Thol tulips that were taking on slender streaks and threads
of carmine in their half transparent white petals, as sweet as the
white hyacinth that was blooming in Mrs. Copley's window. Within the
house Dolly displayed another character, and soon became indispensable
to her mother. In all consultations of business, in emergencies of
packing, in perplexities of arrangements, Dolly was ready with a sweet,
clear common sense, loving hands of skill, and an imperturbable
cheerfulness and patience. It was only a few weeks that the confusion
lasted; during those weeks Mrs. Copley came to know what sort of a
daughter she had. And even Mr. Copley began to divine it.

Mr. Copley has been no more than mentioned. He was a comely,
intelligent, active, energetic man; a very good specimen of a typical
Yan