An Old-Fashioned Girl

As Kate dealt out the colored cards to the grateful girls, Fanny took a good look at her, wondering if the time would ever come when women could earn a little money and success, without paying such a heavy price for them; for Kate looked sick, tired, and too early old. Then her eye went to the unfinished statue, and she said, impulsively, "I hope you 'll put that in marble, and show us what we ought to be."

"I wish I could!" And an intense desire shone in Rebecca's face, as she saw her faulty work, and felt how fair her model was.

For a minute, the five young women sat silent looking up at the beautiful, strong figure before them, each longing to see it done, and each unconscious that she was helping, by her individual effort and experience, to bring the day when their noblest ideal of womanhood should be embodied in flesh and blood, not clay.

The city bells rung one, and Polly started up.

"I must go, for I promised a neighbor of mine a lesson at two."

"I thought this was a holiday," said Fanny.

"So it is, but this is a little labor of love, and does n't spoil the day at all. The child has talent, loves music, and needs help. I can't give her money, but I can teach her; so I do, and she is the most promising pupil I have. Help one another, is part of the religion of our sisterhood, Fan."

"I must put you in a story, Polly. I want a heroine, and you will do," said Kate.

"Me! why, there never was such a humdrum, unromantic thing as I am," cried Polly, amazed.

"I 've booked you, nevertheless, so in you go; but you may add as much romance as you like, it 's time you did."

"I 'm ready for it when it comes, but it can't be forced, you know," and Polly blushed and smiled as if some little spice of that delightful thing had stolen into her life, for all its prosaic seeming.

Fanny was amused to see that the girls did not kiss at parting, but shook hands in a quiet, friendly fashion, looking at one another with eyes that said more than the most

"gushing" words.

"I like your friends very much, Polly. I was afraid I should find them mannish and rough, or sentimental and conceited. But they are simple, sensible creatures, full of talent, and all sorts of fine things. I admire and respect them, and want to go again, if I may."

"Oh, Fan, I am so glad! I hoped you 'd like them, I knew they 'd do you good, and I 'll take you any time, for you stood the test better than I expected. Becky asked me to bring you again, and she seldom does that for fashionable young ladies, let me tell you."

"I want to be ever so much better, and I think you and they might show me how," said Fanny, with a traitorous tremble in her voice.

"We 'll show you the sunny side of poverty and work, and that is a useful lesson for any one, Miss Mills says," answered Polly, hoping that Fan would learn how much the poor can teach the rich, and what helpful friends girls may be to one another.

14. Nipped In The Bud

ON the evening of Fan's visit, Polly sat down before her fire with a resolute and thoughtful aspect. She pulled her hair down, turned her skirt back, put her feet on the fender, and took Puttel into her lap, all of which arrangements signified that something very important had got to be thought over and settled. Polly did not soliloquize aloud, as heroines on the stage and in books have a way of doing, but the conversation she held with herself was very much like this: "I 'm afraid there is something in it. I 've tried to think it 's nothing but vanity or imagination, yet I can't help seeing a difference, and feeling as if I ought not to pretend that I don't. I know it 's considered proper for girls to shut their eyes and let things come to a crisis no matter how much mischief is done. But I don't think it 's doing as we 'd be done by, and it seems a great deal more honest to show a man that you don't love him before he has entirely lost his heart. The girls laughed at me when I said so, and they declared that it would be a very improper thing to do, but I 've observed that they don't hesitate to snub 'ineligible parties,' as they call poor, very young, or unpopular men. It 's all right then, but when a nice person comes it

's part of the fun to let him go on to the very end, whether the girls care for him or not.

The more proposals, the more credit. Fan says Trix always asks when she comes home after the summer excursions, 'How many birds have you bagged?' as if men were partridges. What wicked creatures we are! some of us at least. I wonder why such a love of conquest was put into us? Mother says a great deal of it is owing to bad education nowadays, but some girls seem born for the express purpose of making trouble and would manage to do it if they lived in a howling wilderness. I 'm afraid I 've got a spice of it, and if I had the chance, should be as bad as any of them. I 've tried it and liked it, and maybe this is the consequence of that night's fun."