“That’s what it would come to, if it was part of our living, just as we come to have gold thimbles and lovely work-boxes.  We should give each other Christmas and birthday presents of things; we should have as much pleasure and pride in it as in the china-closet.  Why, the whole trouble is that the kitchen is the only place taste hasn’t got into.  Let’s have an art-kitchen!”

“We might spend a little money in fitting up a few things freshly, if we are to save the waste and expense of a servant,” said Mrs. Holabird.

The idea grew and developed.

“But when we have people to tea!” Rosamond said, suddenly demurring afresh.

“There’s always the brown room, and the handing round,” said Barbara, “for the people you can’t be intimate with, and think how crowsy this will be with Aunt Trixie or Mrs. Hobart or the Goldthwaites!”

“We shall just settle down,” said Rose, gloomily.

“Well, I believe in finding our place.  Every little brook runs till it does that.  I don’t want to stand on tip-toe all my life.”

“We shall always gather to us what belongs.  Every little crystal does that,” said mother, taking up another simile.

“What will Aunt Roderick say?” said Ruth.

“I shall keep her out of the kitchen, and tell her we couldn’t manage with one girl any longer, and so we’ve taken three that all wanted to get a place together.”

And Barbara actually did; and it was three weeks before Mrs. Roderick found out what it really meant.

We were in a hurry to have Katty go, and to begin, after we had made up our minds; and it was with the serenest composure that Mrs. Holabird received her remark that “her week would be up a-Tuesday, an’ she hoped agin then we’d be shooted wid a girl.”

“Yes, Katty; I am ready at any moment,” was the reply; which caused the whites of Katty’s eyes to appear for a second between the lids and the irids.

There had been only one applicant for the place, who had come while we had not quite irrevocably fixed our plans.

Mother swerved for a moment; she came in and told us what the girl said.

“She is not experienced; but she looks good-natured; and she is willing to come for a trial.”

“They all do that,” said Barbara, gravely.  “I think—­as Protestants—­we’ve hired enough of them.”

Mother laughed, and let the “trial” go.  That was the end, I think, of our indecisions.

We got Mrs. Dunikin to come and scrub; we pulled out pots and pans, stove-polish and dish-towels, napkins and odd stockings missed from the wash; we cleared every corner, and had every box and bottle washed; then we left everything below spick and span, so that it almost tempted us to stay even there, and sent for the sheet-iron man, and had the stove taken up stairs.  We only carried up such lesser movables as we knew we should want; we left all the accumulation behind; we resolved to begin life anew, and feel our way, and furnish as we went along.