the way some of the other girls
have,--cooking and babies and nothing else!" she said.

"I think that's an awful mistake," Julie said placidly. "Starting in
right is so important. I don't want to be a mere drudge like Ethel or
Louise--they may like it. I don't! Of course, this isn't a matter to
talk of," she went on, coloring a little. "I'd never breathe this to
Mother! But it's perfectly absurd to pretend that girls don't discuss
these things. I've talked to Betty and Louise--we all talk about it,
you know. And Louise says they haven't had one free second since Buddy
came. She can't keep one maid, and she says the idea of two maids
eating their three meals a day, whether she's home or not, makes her
perfectly sick! Some one's got to be with him every single second,
even now, when he's four,--to see that he doesn't fall off something,
or put things in his mouth. And as Louise says--it means no more week
end trips; you can't go visiting over night, you can't even go for a
day's drive or a day on the beach, without extra clothes for the baby,
a mosquito-net and an umbrella for the baby--milk packed in ice for
the baby--somebody trying to get the baby to take his nap--it's awful!
It would end our Baltimore plan, and that means New York, and New York
means everything to Harry and me!" finished Julie, contentedly,
flattening a finished bit of embroidery on her knee, and regarding
it complacently.

"Well, I think you're right," Margaret approved. "Things are different
now from what they were in Mother's day."

"And look at Mother," Julie said. "One long slavery! Life's too short
to wear yourself out that way!"

Mrs. Paget's sunny cheerfulness was sadly shaken when the actual
moment of parting with the exquisite, rose-hatted, gray-frocked Julie
came; her face worked pitifully in its effort to smile; her tall
figure, awkward in an ill-made unbecoming new silk, seemed to droop
tenderly over the little clinging wife. Margaret, stirred by the sight
of tears on her mother's face, stood with an arm about her, when the
bride and groom drove away in the afternoon sunshine.

"I'm going to stay with you until she gets back!" she reminded
her mother.

"And you know you've always said you wanted the girls to marry,
Mother," urged Mr. Paget. Rebecca felt this a felicitous moment to ask
if she and the boys could have the rest of the ice-cream.

"Divide it evenly," said Mrs. Paget, wiping her eyes and smiling.
"Yes, I know, Daddy de