“Yes. You see I have the violets to attend to, and lots of things in the house. We have so much dusting and all that sort of thing to do, now that we have only one maid, and with all I have to study, I really don’t think I can undertake anything more. Couldn’t you read up about them, and find out all you can? You might make a good deal that way.” A gleam of something like interest had come into Peter’s hitherto depressed-looking face. It quickly faded, however. “It’s such a little thing,” said he. “Little? How do you mean?” “Why, it doesn’t really amount to anything. What is raising mushrooms? Anybody could do that. I want to do something big. If I were only a man, now, I could support you all.” “Yes, I know you could,” rejoined Victoria, quickly, “and it would be too lovely for anything; but you will be a man some day, Peter, and then you can do it, and in the meantime it seems as if the little things would count. And mushrooms are not so little, either. I mean the raising of them. You _might_ be able to make a good deal that way, and in other gardening.” “They’d call me a mushroom, I suppose,” said Peter, gloomily, after he had reviewed the situation for a few moments in silence. “What _do_ you mean?” “A mushroom, or perhaps a toadstool. More likely a toadstool.” “Peter! Who would?” “Those Hastings school-boys.” “Would they? Why?” “Because they are hateful,” said Peter, rising and walking about with his hands in his pockets. “The class I am in is nothing but a set of ruffians. I’d like to fight ’em, every one of ’em, and I will some day. They call me the ‘Glen Arden dude’ now. You see I’m the only boy there who has been to a private school. I wish father had never sent me to that school in Boston. I wish—” “Never mind!” said Victoria, quickly. “Father always did what was quite right. What else do they say?” “They say I’m tied to my sisters’ apron strings, just because they saw me with Honor and Katherine yesterday when I was carrying the bundles. I’ll never go to Fordham with any of you girls again, and I’m not going to carry your bundles if I do go.” Quickly a look of scorn gathered in Victoria’s expressive face. Her brown eyes fairly gleamed with it as they regarded her brother. “What a poor-spirited boy you must be, Peter!” said she. “Poor-spirited!” exclaimed Peter. “Why, I’m willing to fight any boy or any two boys in that school, and I will yet. I’d like to know what you mean by that, Vic!”