ladies use; it _might_ be like
that little picnicking dower-house we read about in a novel, or like
Marie Antoinette's Trianon."

"That's what it _would_ come to, if it was part of our living, just as
we come to have gold thimbles and lovely work-boxes. We should give
each other Christmas and birthday presents of things; we should have
as much pleasure and pride in it as in the china-closet. Why, the
whole trouble is that the kitchen is the only place taste _hasn't_ got
into. Let's have an art-kitchen!"

"We might spend a little money in fitting up a few things freshly, if
we are to save the waste and expense of a servant," said Mrs.
Holabird.

The idea grew and developed.

"But when we have people to tea!" Rosamond said, suddenly demurring
afresh.

"There's always the brown room, and the handing round," said Barbara,
"for the people you can't be intimate with, and _think_ how crowsy
this will be with Aunt Trixie or Mrs. Hobart or the Goldthwaites!"

"We shall just settle _down_," said Rose, gloomily.

"Well, I believe in finding our place. Every little brook runs till it
does that. I don't want to stand on tip-toe all my life."

"We shall always gather to us what _belongs_. Every little crystal
does that," said mother, taking up another simile.

"What will Aunt Roderick say?" said Ruth.

"I shall keep her out of the kitchen, and tell her we couldn't manage
with one girl any longer, and so we've taken three that all wanted to
get a place together."

And Barbara actually did; and it was three weeks before Mrs. Roderick
found out what it really meant.

We were in a hurry to have Katty go, and to begin, after we had made
up our minds; and it was with the serenest composure that Mrs.
Holabird received her remark that "her week would be up a-Tuesday, an'
she hoped agin then we'd be shooted wid a girl."

"Yes, Katty; I am ready at any moment," was the reply; which caused
the whites of Katty's eyes to appear for a second between the lids and
the irids.

There had been only one applicant for the place, who had come while we
had not quite irrevocably fixed our plans.

Mother swerved for a moment; she came in and told us what the girl
said.

"She is not experienced; but she looks good-natured; and she is
willing to come for a trial."

"They all do that," said Barbara, gravely. "I think--as
Protestants--we've hired enough of them."

Mother laughed, and let the "trial" go. That was the end, I think, of
ou