he will find a place for herself. She will
get married one of these days and settle down beautifully."

"Allen?"

"Possibly. The Bassetts don't seem troubled by Allen's attentions to
Marian; but the real fight between Mr. Thatcher and Mr. Bassett hasn't
come yet."

"Who says so?"

"Oh, it's in the air; every one says so. Dan says so."

"I've warned Morton to let Edward Thatcher alone. The United States
Senate wouldn't be ornamented by having either one of them down there.
I met Colonel Ramsay--guess he's got the senatorial bee in his hat,
too--coming up on the train from Louisville the other day. There's only
one qualification I can think of that the Colonel has for going to the
Senate--he would wring tears out of the galleries when he made obituary
speeches about the dead members. When my brother Blackford was senator,
it seemed to me he spent most of his time acting as pallbearer for the
dead ones. But what were we talking about, Sylvia? Oh, yes. I'm going to
send those catalogues over to your room, and as you get time I want you
to study out a scheme for a little school to teach what you call
efficiency to girls that have to earn their living. I don't mean
school-teaching, but a whole lot of things women ought to be doing but
ain't because they don't know how. Do you get the idea?"

"A school?" asked Sylvia wonderingly.

"A kind of school."

"It's a splendid, a beautiful idea, but you need better advice than I
can give you. They talk a good deal now about vocational training, and
it's going to mean a great deal to women."

"Well, we must get hold of all the latest ideas, and if there's any good
in us old daguerreotypes, we'll keep it, and graft it on to the kodak."

"Oh, I hope there will always be ladies of the daguerreotype! One thing
we women have to pray to be saved from is intolerance toward our
sisters. You know," continued Sylvia with a dropping of her voice and a
tilting of her head that caused Mrs. Owen to laugh,--"you know we are
not awfully tolerant. And there's a breadth of view, an ability to brush
away trifles and get to the heart of things, that we're just growing up
to. And magnanimity--I think we fall short there. I'm just now trying to
cultivate a sisterly feeling toward these good women for whom Jane
Austen and Sir Roger de Coverley and the knitting of pale-blue tea
cosies are all of life--who like mild twilight with the children singing
hymns at the piano and the husband coming home to