We Girls: a Home Story

alking home with Leslie and Doctor John Hautayne

" said Leslie, s

e. The only difference was that in one house the staircase went up on the right side of the hall, and in another on the left,-now and then, perhaps, at the back; and when you came d

nexts,'" said Leslie,

e!" Miss Elizabeth spoke in a lower tone, for Lucilla was just before the Inglesides,

sts are getting tired of ice-creams," replied Leslie. "Dear Miss Penningto

y think the trouble is with the confectionery, and so they try macaroon and pistachio instead of lemon and vanilla. Fresh p

family!" said Doc

e-papered walls and cosey, deep windows and big chimneys. And we don't half u

leave," replied Doctor Hautayne,

ry long," said Leslie, telling

a thing she did take it up! That does n

ankses; somehow they do not seem to care to take the trouble for that; but they are so established; it is a family like an old tree, that is past its gree

d porch in front, and then terraces, flagged with gray stone and bordered with flower-beds at each side and below. They have peacocks and guinea-hens, and more roses

on was killed in Mexico, just after he had been brevetted Major. There is a Major Pennington now,-the younger brother,-out at Fort Vancouver; and he is Pen's father. When

here, in their quiet, retired way; and they had

was making an apple-pudding for dinner, when Madam P

sy helping Mrs. Holabird. Rosamond went to

ng, but she will come directly. She is

ng, and cannot leave her clay till she has damped and covered it." Her nice perception went to the very fart

ust not be left in the middle. I wonder if she would let an o

ght up and said, "I am sure she will; please come this way," and opened the door,

unshine, holding her hand out to Mrs. Holabird, and smiling all the way from her s

lly coming to see

ich she was reducing her flour and butter to a golden powder, and took Madam Pennington's nicely gloved fi

wn against her white apron, and seated herself again at her work when the

the scald, and waiting upon a plate, and a pitcher of cold water with ice tinkling against its sides. Mother sat with the deal bowl in her lap, turning and mincing with the

test room in all your hou

it would be when we turned it

that this is rea

laughing. "We either dine in our kitchen or kitch in our dini

wonderful

s," said Mrs. Pennington. "Only you would have made your room

ned

ajor turns out the captain, and the colonel the major. Ther

d laid it on, into the curve of the basin. Barbara brought the apples, cut up in white fresh slices, and slid them into the round. Mrs. Holabird folded over the edges, gathered up the linen cloth in her hands, tied it tightly with a string, and Barbara disappeared with it behind the damask screen, where a puff of steam went up in a minute that told the puddi

d Miss Elizabeth. "I am afraid I s

aid Madam Pennington. "It was to ask about a

," said Mrs. Hola

oing with" s

t one of the tangles in the girl-question is the mistake of taking the rawest specimens into f

r, as Ruth would s

f beyond. There is too much in 'general housework' for one ignorant, inexperienced brain t

said Madam Pennington, with a s

her, earnestly. "If I should tell you all I think about it, you would say it was visionary, I am af

are not homes truly,"

ames, as the French do, if we

? The enemy has got possession. Iri

t the brightest grace and the most beautiful culture must come to bear upon this little, every-day living, which is all that the world works for after all. The whole heaven is made t

ngton looked at each o

ink we shall not always stop short at the drawing-room, and pretend at each other on the surface of things. I think the time may come when young girls and single women will be as willing, and think it as honorable, to go into homes which they need, and which need them, and give the best that they have grown to into the commonwealth of them, as they are willing now to educate and try for public places. And it will seem to them as great and beautiful a thing

hem for the moment, that she scarcely knew she was saying it all. The color came up in their cheeks, and they were young and splendid, both of them. We thought it was as good

her when she took her hand at going away. A

ursday of all. I shall give primary invitations only,-and my primaries are to find secondaries. No household is to represent merely itself; one or two, or more, from one family are to bring always one or two, or more, from somewhere else. I am goi

leaving us tha

ndition. Each member is to provide one practical answer to 'What next?' 'Next Thursday' is always to be in charge

They all came from that one blessed little Halloween party of ours. It means something that there is such a thing as the multiplication-table; doesn't it? You can't help yourself if you start a unit, good or bad. The Garden of Eden, and

belonged. There they were, though, in the stately old Pennington house, that was never thrown open for nothing; and when they were once there you really could not tell

vidual Indur passing through a metempsychosis of millinery; nests of old hats that were odder than the bonnets; swallow-tailed coats; broad-skirted blue ones with brass buttons; baby waists and basquines; leg-of-mutton sleeves, balloons, and military; collars inch-wide and collars ell-wide with ruffles rayonnantes; gathers and gores, tunnel-skirts, and barrel-skirts and paniers. She made monstrous paper dickeys, and high black stocks, and great bundlin

gleside, with a wooden leg strapped on, dropped into poetry in the light of a friend; Maria Hendee came in twisting up her back hair, as Pleasant Riderhood,-Maria Hendee's back hair was splendid; Leslie looked very sweet and quiet as Lizzie Hexam, and she brough

she was so completely Jennie Wren that no one-at the moment-thought of her in any other character, or remembered their rules of behaving according to the square of the distance. She "took patterns" of Mrs. Lewis Marchbanks's trimmings to her very face; she readied up behind Mrs. Linceford, and measured the festoon of her panier. There was no reason why she should be afraid or abashed; Maddy Freeman is a little lady, only she is poor, and a genius. She stepped right out of Dickens's story, not into it, as the re

rth evening. Nobody had anything to say about parts, except the person

s "what next." Leslie behaved as if she had always known him; I believe i

eman to "come up and be dead" whenever she felt like it; she goes there every week now, to copy pictures, and get rare little bits for her designs out of the Penningtons' great portfolios of engravi

r old "set" that would be in any danger of getting left out. "Society is like a cor

many ways,-that last winter of the

however many days lead up to it-Doctor Ingleside came in and told us the new

w what they meant by that, but he didn't care; it was as much his ne

g to marry Doct

could say; that is a true thing people do say to each other, in the face of a great, beautiful f

; it was only

has never been in it with him before; that is, we'll concede that, for the sake of argument, though I'm not so sure about it; and he has come right here into hers. They are fair, open, pleasant ways

turn to provide; but for us,-we looked into new depths in Leslie's serene, clear, woman eyes, and we felt the intenser something in his face and voice, and t

as the first of March when

nace, which father attended to; and although our "chore-man" came and split up kindlings and filled the wood-boxes, yet we were all pretty well tired out, sometimes, just with keeping warm. We began to begin to s

secret feeling of Aunt Roderick, and her prophecy that we "shouldn't hold out long." But we were

y Forge." The kitchen fire wouldn't burn, and the thermometer was down to 3° above. Mother was worrying

hen came in from school

New Jersey," said he. "Jim Stilking told me so

n't go," said Ro

Barbara, regardless of elegance; "and-since nobody else will ever dare

; it is going on,"

ly was not

rbara. "We shall raise, upon a bit of renovated earth, the first millennial specimen,-se

Fish cam

ccasions which prove that you couldn't have lived another minute without it? We could not have spared Arctura a single day, after th

t fatal attack, and some of us had to be with Aunt Roderic

apers there was no will found, of an

been the "family bosom," Barbara said, ever since she cuddled us up in our baby bla

Trixie. Aunt Trixie never l

able. It was, indeed, a very serious anxiety and troub

elieved or suspected; but there it was. We could not think how such a declared determination and act of Grandfather Holabird should have come to nothing. Uncle and Au

od people, and meant right; it

the place. He should pay his debts, now, the first thing. Wha

should stay there for the summ

shame!" sai