“I didn’t,” said Katherine. “Do you know I think it is almost a relief to Aunt Sophia that she isn’t obliged to have us there, after all. We should interfere dreadfully with her regular ways, even if she did turn us to account, with her writing and her dusting, and I also think she is very curious to see what we do, and how we come out. She is already looking forward, I plainly see, to the time, when she can prove that she knows more than anybody else, and that we are all dismal failures. For that reason, girls, if for nothing else, we must prove that we are not. We _must_ succeed!” “Do you think we were at all disrespectful to her?” said Honor. “No, not a bit. We had to be emphatic. It was the only way to make her understand that we were in earnest.” “I know, but she is father’s sister and our only near relative, even if she is aggravating, and I think she is fond of us in her own way. It was very good and generous of her to offer to do so much for us.” “It is certainly in ‘her own way’ that she loves us, if she loves us at all,” said Katherine. “Honor, it must be a terrible bore to have such a conscience as you are burdened with. I’m glad it’s yours, and not mine, and I’m glad, too, that we came out victorious in the scrimmage with our beloved aunt, fond of us though she may be.” By the end of the week, their plans were made, and they were ready to put them at once into action. The idea of a boarding-school was abandoned. That was absolutely impracticable, as they soon saw for themselves. They had no experience upon which to go to work, and no influence upon which they could depend to bring them pupils. Honor, however, opened a day school for small children. There happened to be none already in Fordham, and among the friends of the Starrs there were a number who were glad, not only to help the girls in their efforts for self-support, but also to have a class formed for the children whom it was not desirable, because of their extreme youth, to send to the larger schools. Katherine had already secured several music scholars and hoped for more, while she also intended to help Honor with the school, in which Sophy was to be a pupil. Victoria and Peter left the private schools which they had attended and were transferred to public ones, although Victoria secretly determined that this should be her last winter of study. She felt that she must unite with the others in working for the support of the family. Had not she been the one who had first suggested the idea? In the meantime she planted her violet bed and proceeded to investigate the cultivation of mushrooms.