rformed
with a delight intensified by a feeling of daring.

"Papa, I have washed the dishes beautifully; I know I have," she
said, and she looked at him for praise, her head on one side, her
look half-whimsical, half-childishly earnest. "I don't see why it is
at all hard work to be a maid," said she.

"There are other things to do, dear, I suppose," Carroll said.

"I think I could easily learn to do the other things," said she. "I
don't quite know about the washing and ironing, and possibly the
scrubbing and sweeping." Charlotte surveyed, as she spoke, her hands.
She looked at the little, pink palms, made pinker and slightly
wrinkled by the dish-water; she turned them and surveyed the backs
with the slightly scalloping joints, and the thin-nailed fingers. She
shook her head. "I don't know," said she, again.

"I know," Carroll said, quickly. "Your father is going to take care
of you, Charlotte. It has not yet come to that pass that he is quite
helpless."

Charlotte did not seem to notice his hurt, indignant tone. She went
on reflectively. "It does seem," said she, "as if there were a great
many ways of being crippled besides not having all your arms and
legs; as if it were really being very much crippled if you are in a
place where there is work to be done, and your hands are not rightly
made for doing it. Now here I am, and I can't do Marie's work as well
as Marie did it, because she was really born with hands for washing
and ironing and scrubbing and sweeping, and I wasn't. A person is
really crippled when she is born unfitted to do the things that come
her way to be done, isn't she, papa?"

"There is no question of your doing such things, Charlotte," Carroll
said again, and Charlotte looked at him quickly.

"Why, papa!" said she, and went up to him and kissed him. She rubbed
her cheek caressingly against his, and his cheek felt wet. She
realized that with a sort of terror. "Why, papa, I did not mean any
harm!" she said.

"I will get a servant for you to-morrow, Charlotte," he said,
brokenly. "It has not yet come to pass that you have to do such
work." He spoke brokenly. He did not trust himself to look at the
girl, who was now looking at him intently and seriously.

"Papa, listen to me," said she. "Really, there is no scrubbing nor
sweeping nor washing nor ironing to be done here for quite a time.
Marie has left the house in very good condition. There is enough
money to pay for the laundry for some time, a