“Do?” echoed Margery.

“Yes; it always seemed to me that Bell Winship would do something in the world; that she would never go along placidly like other girls, she has so many talents.”

“Yes; but so long as they have plenty of money, Dr. and Mrs. Winship would probably never encourage her in doing anything.”

“It would be all the better if she could do something because she loved it, and with no thought of earning a living by it.  Is n’t it odd that I who most need the talents should have fewer than any one of our dear little group?  Bell can write, sing, dance, or do anything else, in fact; Elsie can play like an angel; you can draw; but it seems to me I can do nothing well enough to earn money by it; and that is precisely what I must do.”

“You ’ve never had any special instruction, Polly dear, else you could sing as well as Bell, or play as well as Elsie.”

“Well, I must soon decide.  Mamma says next summer, when I am seventeen, she will try to spend a year in San Francisco and let me study regularly for some profession.  The question is, what?—­or whether to do something without study.  I read in a magazine the other day that there are now three hundred or three thousand, I can’t remember which, vocations open to women.  If it were even three hundred I could certainly choose one to my liking, and there would be two hundred and ninety-nine left over for the other girls.  Mrs. Weeks is trying to raise silkworms.  That would be rather nice, because the worms would be silent partners in the business and do most of the work.”

“But you want something without any risks, you know,” said Margery sagely.  “You would have to buy ground for the silkworms, and set out the mulberries, and then a swarm of horrid insects might happen along and devour the plants before the worms began spinning.”

“‘Competition is the life of trade,’” said Polly.  “No, that is n’t what I mean—­’Nothing venture, nothing have,’ that’s it.  Then how would hens do?  Ever so many women raise hens.”

“Hens have diseases, and they never lay very well when you have to sell the eggs.  By the way, Clarence Jones, who sings in the choir,—­you know, the man with the pink cheeks and corn-silk hair,—­advertises in the ‘Daily Press’ for a ‘live partner.’  Now, there ’s a chance on an established hen-ranch, if he does n’t demand capital or experience.”

“It’s a better chance for Miss Ferguson.  But she does n’t like Mr. Jones, because when he comes to call, his coat-pockets are always bulging with brown paper packages of a hen-food that he has just invented.  The other day, when he came to see her, she was out, and he handed me his card.  It had a picture and advertisement of ’The Royal Dish-faced Berkshire Pig’ on it; and I ’m sure, by her expression when she saw it, that she will never be his ‘live partner.’  No, I don’t think I ’ll have an out-of-door occupation, it’s so trying to the complexion.  Now, how about millinery?  I could be an apprentice, and gradually rise until I imported everything direct from Paris.”