expenses,
bouquets and fresh gloves would be nearer the truth--won't always meet
the claims upon your gold and silver showers; and Susan," added Lilias,
not to be cheated out of her diatribe, and starting with new alacrity,
"practising attitudes and looking at her hands; and Conny reading her
trashy romances."

"It is not a romance, Lilias," complained Conny piteously; "it is a tale
of real life."

"It is all the same," maintained the inexorable Lilias; "one of the most
aggravating novels I ever read was a simple story."

"Oh, Lilias, do lend it to me!" begged Polly; "I'm not literary, but it
is delightful to be intensely interested until the very hair rises on
the crown of one's head."

"I don't know that you would like it," put in Joanna; "it is not one of
the modern novels, and it has only one dismal catastrophe; it is the
fine old novel by Mrs. Inchbald."

"Then I don't want it; I don't care for old things, since I have not a
palate for old wines or an eye for old pictures. I hate the musty,
buckram ghosts of our fathers."

"Oh! but Mrs. Inchbald never raised ghosts, Polly; she manoeuvred
stately, passionate men and women of her own day."

"The wiser woman she. But they would be ghosts to me, Jack, unless they
were in the costume of the present day; there is not an inch of me given
to history."

"And you, Joanna," concluded Lilias, quite determined to breast every
interruption and finish her peroration, "you have listened, and smiled,
and frowned, and dreamt for an hour."

"I was waiting in case papa should want me," apologized Joanna,
rather humbly.

"That need not have hindered you from hemming round the skirt of
this frock."

"Oh, Lilias! I am sorry for you, girl," cried Polly. "You're in a
diseased frame of mind; you are in a fidget of work; you don't know the
enjoyment of idleness, the luxury of laziness. You'll spoil your
complexion; your hair will grow grey; no man will dare to trifle with
such a notable woman!"

"I don't care!" exclaimed Lilias bluntly and magnanimously. "I don't
want to be trifled with; I don't value men's admiration."

"Now! Now!! Now!!! Now!!!!" protested Polly; "I don't value men's
admiration either, of course, but I like partners, and I would not be
fond of being branded as a strong-minded female, a would-be Lady
Bountiful, a woman going a-tracking; that's what men say of girls who
don't care to be trifled with. But, Lilias, are you quite sure you don't
believe in any