The hint of reasonable limit, and the word of trust, were better than lock and law.

“How nice this is!” said Mary Pinfall, as Bel put a hot muffin, mellow with sweet butter, upon her plate.

“If Matilda Meane only knew which side—­and where—­bread was buttered!  She’s living on ‘relief,’ yet; and she buys cream-cakes for dinner, and peanuts for tea!  But, Bel, what were you up-stairs for?  I thought you was queen o’ the kitchen!”

“Kate gives me her chance, sometimes.  We change about, to make things even.  The best of it is in the up-stairs work, and waiting at table is the first-best chance of all.  You see, you ’take it in at the pores,’ as the man says in the play.”

“Tea and oysters?” said Elise, with an exclamatory interrogation.

“You know better.  See here, Elise.  You don’t half believe in this experiment, though you appreciate the muffins.  But it isn’t just loaves and fishes.  There’s a living in the world, and a way to earn it, besides clothes, and bread and butter.  If you want it, you can choose your work nearest to where the living is.  And wherever else it may or mayn’t be, it is in houses, and round tea-tables like this.”

“Other people’s living,—­for you to look at and wait on,” said Elise.  “I like to be independent.”

“They can’t keep it back from us, if they wanted to,” said Bel.  “And you can’t be independent; there’s no such thing in the world.  It’s all give and take.”

“How about ‘other folks’ dust,’ Kate?  Do you remember?”

“There’s only one place, I guess, after all,” said Kate, “where you can be shut up with nothing but your own dust!”

“Sharper than ever, Kate Sencerbox!  I guess you do get rubbed up!”

“Mr. Stalworth is there to-night,” said Bel.  “He tells as good stories as he writes.  And they’ve been talking about Tyndall’s Essays, and the spectroscope.  Mrs. Scherman asked questions that I don’t believe she’d any particular need of answers to, herself; and she stopped me once when I was going out of the room for something.  I knew by her look that she wanted me to hear.”

“If they want you to hear, why don’t they ask you to sit down and hear comfortably?” said Elise Mokey, who had got her social science—­with a little warp in it—­from Boffin’s Bower.

“Because it’s my place to stand, at that time,” said Bel, stoutly; “and I shouldn’t be comfortable out of my place.  I haven’t earned a place like Mrs. Scherman’s yet, or married a man that has earned it for me.  There are proper things for everybody.  It isn’t always proper for Mrs. Scherman to sit down herself; or for Mr. Scherman to keep his hat on.  It’s the knowing what’s proper that sets people really up; it never puts them down!”

“There’s one thing,” said Kate Sencerbox.  “You might be parlor people all your days, and not get into everybody’s parlor, either.  There’s an up-side and a down-side, all the way through, from top to bottom.  The very best chance, for some people, if they only knew it, into some houses, would be up through the kitchen.”