"Undoubtedly it will. We may as well prepare ourselves for this. And the same kind guardians of their neighbors' behavior and general interests would buzz and sting yet more industriously were one of us to sicken with small-pox, or the house to burn down to-morrow. Or, if papa were to go off in a rapid consumption, they would bewail the number of girls in our family as loudly and as delightedly as they will soon be gossiping about poor, distraught Mr. Sibthorpe and his quartette of what Blanche calls overgrown babies; would dole out to us such charity of word and deed as falls to the share of the Payne girls. My darlings, if I could tell you how I long to see you independent of such changes in fortune and fair-weather friends! each of you armed in herself to meet reverses and to defy them, with God's help and blessing upon those who are trying to help themselves!"

Whatever error the tender mother may have made in her calculations of what was to be risked, gained, and lost by the bold step she purposed, she had not overrated the amount and quality of gossip caused by the practical operation of her scheme. Stories, having "Mrs. Hiller's queer whim" for a starting-point, increased and multiplied, and flew over the town like thistle-down in a windy September day. The mother was a tyrant; the daughters were peculiar and strong-minded. The parents refused to maintain their offspring because they were not sons, and had informed them of their intention to bequeath every dollar of their property to a Boys' Orphan Asylum. The offspring disdained to be fed and clothed by the hated parents. Mr. Hiller was insolvent; Mrs. Hiller was insane; both were misers. The sisters were engaged to be married to missionaries, and were bent upon engrafting the multifarious iniquities of the modern and Christian woman's garb upon the scantily-clothed trunk of Ashantee, or Papuyan, or Root-digger fashions.

At first our heroines were annoyed, then diverted. In less than three months they ceased to think of the babble at all, in their growing interest in their active, varied home-life.

Just a year from the March night on which Mrs. Hiller had used so many nautical figures in her speech and reverie, two cards were brought up to the "academy of useful arts," as the fair students therein persisted in calling a large room at the back of the house. It was airy and sunny, and, to-day, was full of life and enjoyment, for mother and daughters were gathered there, and the chirping was like that of a happily-crowded robin's nest.

"The ladies say, do let 'em run right up, without ceremony," reported the servant.

"'Arethusa Payne,' and 'Marietta Sibthorpe,'" read Blanche from the cards. "Ask them to walk up to the work-room, Jane. Mind that you say' the work-room.'" As the amused girl left the chamber, the young lady continued: "An Inspection Committee! Let them come! Won't I make them open their eyes, though?" "I had no idea you were engaged with a dressmaker. I am afraid we intrude," simpered Miss Payne, tiptoeing, like a cautious hen, between Blanche's work-stand, piled with bonnet frames and linings, and Imogen's, down which flowed a river of silken flounces, half gathered at the top; noting likewise, by turning her sharp face to the right, then the left, as she stepped (still like an inquisitive Partlet), that Emma's tall desk, with a ledger open upon it, was in a corner.

Mrs. Hiller was ripping up a black silk dress; Emma was pulling a velvet hat to pieces.

"Only practising our trades a little in furbishing up things; giving a spring-ish look to hats and gowns," rejoined Blanche, with saucy politeness. "One gets, so sick of winter clothes!"

"Dear me, how convenient! What a source of amusement it must be to have that sort of knack!" said Miss Sibthorpe, self-compassionately. "It is a genuine talent, isn't it now downriglit genius ! And can you actually make a hat, Blanche! 1 couldn't put a bit of ribbon on mine to save my life!"

"But we are professionals," put in Imogen. "You have no idea how we have worked to acquire the artistic touch. We had Miss Tiptop's forewoman with us at the country cottage we rented last summer, all the "dull season," on purpose to teach me dressmaking, besides the lessons I had had in town. Blanche ran down to the city every week for an all-day lesson."

"But how very odd!" ejaculated Arethusa.

"That people should pay such exorbitant milliners' bills all their lives, when they could learn the business with one-fourth the labor and in one-tenth of the time music requires?" Blanche said, in wilful misunderstanding, setting her head on one side, and holding her unfinished hat off at arm's length to examine the effect. "It is queer, as you say. I'll be generous, girls. I'll give you instructions, if you wish - take you as my ap-prentices. I should enjoy it hugely."

Both laughed shrilly and affectedly, to disguise the offence her proposal gave them.

"I haven't the least taste for such employment," said Arethusa.

"You are very kind, but my social engagements are so numerous!" pleaded Marietta. "Honestly, what do you do it for?" You can't really like it! It seems so - so - very peculiar! such a queer whim, you know!"

"That is just what everybody says - such a queer whim! You get so much talked about, you know," subjoined Arethusa. "And it is so excessively disagreeable to be talked about! I couldn't stand it."

"But you do not understand," pursued Blanche, Solemnly, "that you might make a living by it. Why, we three expect to be a rich firm in the course of time; to buy up bank stock and railway shares, and speculate in real estate, and all that. Emma is a capital bookkeeper. Papa says she could command a salary of a thousand dollars a year already. Then, think of the luxury of having a new dress, or, what is the same thing, one that is made over to look like new, at every party; and as many hats a season as you want, for what it would cost to buy one at Madame Lavigne's. And finally, you see, one respects herself so thoroughly and deliciously for being able to fill up a real place - a worker's place - in the world. Most women remind me of marbles that have rolled somehow into holes. Sometimes it is a fit. But as often as not the marble is round, and the hole is square!"