, since--why, never in my life! And they are very
amusing--some of them. They like to come here--like it immensely. And I
don't wonder. I believe you'll do well to enlarge."

Then they plunged into a discussion of the winter's plans. The day
service department and its employment agency was to go on at the New
Union House, with Mrs. Jessup as manager; the present establishment was
to be run as a hotel and restaurant, and the depot for the cooked food
delivery.

Mrs. Thorvald and her husband were installed by themselves in another
new venture; a small laundry outside the town. This place employed
several girls steadily, and the motor wagon found a new use between
meals, in collecting and delivering laundry parcels.

"It simplifies it a lot--to get the washing out of the place and the
girls off my mind," said Diantha. "Now I mean to buckle down and learn
the hotel business--thoroughly, and develop this cooked food delivery to
perfection."

"Modest young lady," smiled her mother. "Where do you mean to stop--if
ever?"

"I don't mean to stop till I'm dead," Diantha answered; "but I don't
mean to undertake any more trades, if that is what you mean. You know
what I'm after--to get 'housework' on a business basis, that's all; and
prove, prove, PROVE what a good business it is. There's the cleaning
branch--that's all started and going well in the day service. There's
the washing--that's simple and easy. Laundry work's no mystery. But
the food part is a big thing. It's an art, a science, a business, and
a handicraft. I had the handicraft to start with; I'm learning the
business; but I've got a lot to learn yet in the science and art of it."

"Don't do too much at once," her mother urged. "You've got to cater to
people as they are."

"I know it," the girl agreed. "They must be led, step by step--the
natural method. It's a big job, but not too big. Out of all the women
who have done housework for so many ages, surely it's not too much to
expect one to have a special genius for it!"

Her mother gazed at her with loving admiration.

"That's just what you have, Dina--a special genius for housework. I wish
there were more of you!"

"There are plenty of me, mother dear, only they haven't come out. As
soon as I show 'em how to make the thing pay, you'll find that we have
a big percentage of this kind of ability. It's all buried now in the
occasional 'perfect housekeeper.'

"But they won't leave their husbands, Dina."

"T