“My dear sister,” edged in the Colonel, as she paused for breath, “no one questions your ability, only the fitness of--” “I had thought over two things,” broke in Caroline again. “If you don’t like me to have Jessie, and Essie, and Ellie, I would offer to prepare little boys. I’ve been more used to them than to girls, and I know Mr. Ogilvie would be glad. I could have the little Wrights, and Walter Leslie, and three or four more directly, but I thought you might like the other way better.” “I can see no occasion for either,” said Ellen. “You need no increase in income, only to attend to details.” “And I had rather do what I can--than what I can’t,” said Caroline. “Every lady should understand how to superintend her own household,” said her Serene Highness. “Granted; oh, granted, Ellen! I’m going to superintend with all my might and main, but I don’t want to be my own upper servant, and I know I should make no hand of it, and I had much rather earn something by my wits. I can do it best in the way I was trained; and you know it is what I have been used to ever since my own children were born.” Ellen heaved a sigh at this obtuseness towards what she viewed as the dignified and ladylike mission of the well-born woman, not to be the bread-winner, but the preserver and steward, of the household. Here was poor little Caroline so ignorant as actually to glory in having been educated for a governess! The Colonel, wanting to finish his Times in peace, looked up and said, with the gracious tone he always used to his brother’s wife-- “My good little sister, it is very praiseworthy in you to wish to exert yourself, and very kind and proper to desire to begin at home, but you must allow us a little time to consider.” She took this as a hint to retreat; and her Serene Highness likewise feeling it a dismissal, tried at once to obviate all ungraciousness by saying, “We are preserving our magnum bonums, Caroline dear; I will send you some.” “Magnum bonum!” gasped Caroline, hearing nothing but the name. “Do you know--?” “I know the recipe of course, and can give you an excellent one. I will come over by-and-by and explain it to you.” Caroline stood confounded. Had Joe revealed all to his brother? Was it to be treated as a domestic nostrum? “Then you know what the magnum bonum is?” she faltered. “Are you asking as a philosopher,” said the Colonel, amused by her tone “I don’t know what you mean, Colonel,” said his wife. “I offered Caroline a basket of magnum bonums for preserving, and one would think I had said something very extraordinary.”