"We did that same, Evelyn; we decided that we wanted but little here below, but that we wanted that little right away!" "And I recall how magnanimously you promised to share my last crust with me," said Mr. Ferris, hitching Nan's chair nearer to him. "Yes," continued she, "I'll never desert you. But I was going to say that I don't think I have kept my part of the agreement. You have given me advantages which even richer girls have not had, and I have not done a thing with them yet. I have had a whole year of idleness, and I'm tired of it, and want to go to work." The family had heard something of this independent mood before, but, as nothing alarming came of it, they received this announcement without any demonstration of surprise; indeed, Mr. Ferris attended to the dissolution of the sugar in his second cup of tea before looking up, and then he said, "Yes?" with a slowly rising inflection. "Yes!" came from Nan with a short downward one; "Yes, sir, and I have a plan this time, and wish to consult my beloved family before doing anything rash." "So that you can do it afterward with a clear conscience, I suppose?" ventured her father, wickedly. "No, I shall do something a hundred times rasher if you oppose this plan, for it is the least revolutionary thing I can think of." "Well?"--said her father, inquiringly. "You know how hard Aunt Hettie has tried to induce one of us to come down to New York and spend the winter with her and Uncle Nat, and how we have all begged off because they live so quietly and so far up town, we thought we should simply stagnate? I should like to go there this winter, not, I blush to say, for their sakes alone, but because I wish to study." [Illustration: NAN FOUND CATHY FILLING A FIREPLACE WITH GOLDEN-ROD. (SEE NEXT PAGE.)] "What! study more?" groaned Lou, who was only fourteen, and in the toils of cube-root. "Yes, study more," asserted Nan. "I want to take a course of lessons in a school of design, for I think I may do something in that line that may pay, after a while. Now, observe the latent beauty of my scheme. By spending the winter with them, I shan't need any new clothes--which means that I intend to pay for my lessons out of my own allowance." "Oh, never mind that, dear child," Mr. Ferris said lovingly. "Yes, I _will_ mind! That is just what makes us girls so good-for-nothing;--we don't 'mind' enough! I really think it would be fun to actually _need_ a new dress and know I couldn't have it until I _earned_ it--buttons, whale-bones, and braid. Anyhow, if it were not fun, it would be good for my character. Now what do you all think?" and Nan helped herself to cake, observing that the others had finished theirs. Mr. Ferris, heaving an involuntary sigh, began: "Well, dear, as you know, your mother and I consider it our duty to bring up our girls so that each can, if the necessity should come, earn her own living; and perhaps the time is here for one to fly out of the nest to try her wings,--ah, me!"