The Other Girls

tacked up on the great elm-tree by th

led upon to make payment,-and all having demands again

ed up everywhere. But Mrs. Ingraham had on a plain muslin cap, instead of a ribboned one such as she was used to wear; and Dot was in a black calico dress; they sat in the kitchen window together, ripping up some breadths of fad

e." Large or small, an estate has always to be settled. There had been a man already applying to buy out the remainder of the bakery lease,-house and all. He was ready

o meet, for the ambition, or even possible gain, of carrying on a business. She understood it perfectly; she could have done it; she could, perhaps, have worked out some of her own new ideas; if she and Dot had been brothers, instead of sisters, it would ve

should wish to marry?

f her sister were bound and hampered in any way; and even though Dot were willing, could she see clear to decide upo

years' business on her hands. "Why-he might be a-anything," was the odd little wording with which she mentally exclaimed at this point of her considerations. And if he were anything,-anything of a man, and doing anything in the world as a man does,-what would they do with two businesses? The whole vexed question solved itself to her

her, and duty no longer showed her one inevitable way, chose deliberately to be a woman. She t

nd to be paid for; that will be safe

underline, when he sat talking with her

ys; beside having especial occasion in this matter, as represent

what either of us"-she changed her word with brave honesty, "might have a wish for, before seven years were over? If I were forty years old, and could do it, I would; I would take girls for journeymen,-girl

s doctrine; it doesn't leav

could feel sure about her. I suppose that is what has kept women out of the real business world,-the orderin

lay itself aside; ready to help, not lead. Made the most tender, because most perfect outcome and blossom of humanity, woman accepts her conditions, as God Himself accepts his own, when He hides Himself away under limitations, that the secret force may lie ready to the work man thinks he does upon the earth and with it. In dumb, w

of self-forgetting, when she said

f his own work? What made him

my own, Ray, at las

said Ray, earnest

y hands to carry out. He'll step over and look round, once in a while, but I'm to have the care of it straight through,-stock, work, and all; and I'm to have half the profits. Isn't that high of Holder? He has his hands full, you know,

rl, telling Ray what he was so glad of. And Ray list

He had stood there a few minutes, leaning against the white fence, and looking across the little door-yard, to a

londe complexion. It was a "platform dress," she told him, laughing; she was going with the Leverings on a reading and musical tour; they had got a little company together, and would give entertainments in the large co

were anything else left of it or not, she would have had that; that, and the sea-green dress. While she talked, her mo

pipes; contriving and hurrying, working out with painstaking in laborious detail an agreement, that a new rich man might get into his new rich house by October? When she had only to make herself lovely and step out among the lights before a gay assembly, to be applauded and boqueted, to be stared at and followed; to live in

silk dress. He must leave her now, with the shimmer of them all about her imagination, bewildering it, as the lovely, lustrous heap upon her lap

nd he said what a pity

ith herself; a little fight with that in her heart which mad

ing out, perversely, this poor side of her-

at," she made herself say, when she replied

will. You have always been go

Why did he make it impossi

lp, when you said it, being satisfied-that you should see. I don't know whet

ngraham, growing out of her clear perception and her very honesty. When she could see a thing, it seemed as if everybody ought to see it; if they did not, as

elf, too," said Frank. "And

impossible to be quite true, I think. The nearer you try

e a different point, "All through the village there have been things happening,

he story isn't done, ever? That there is always more to tell, on and on? And that means more to do. We are

arts of him. He builded; he believed in building; in something coming of every stroke. Real work disposes and qualifies a man to believe in a real destiny,-a real God. A carpenter can see that nails are never d

and Dot presently followed. They began to talk of their plans. They wer

ld afford to occupy it. She had used, for many years, to let out a part of her rooms,-these that the Ingrahams would take,-in a tenement, as people used

a real old Boston homestead, of which so few remain. There were corner beams and wainscots, some tiled chimney-pieces, even. It made you think of

f pleasant childish visiting days; Ray, of long domesticatio

cross to the Pilgrim Street roofs, and see women hanging out clothes there upon the flat tops of one or two of the

ny of us may be as near as that to each other in the telling of the world's story, who never g

arly summer. It was July when Bel came d