"Don't you think, Prue, that is not quite honest?" suggested Cousin Peace gently. "Don't you think upright, self-respecting honesty demands that one should take that place in the world which belongs to him? And common sense will tell you it is the only way to be happy. I don't mean to preach, my dear, but when you look around you and see how many people are false to their ideals, and sink to incredible baseness for the love of display, it seems to me that when one is but slenderly equipped with money it is an obvious duty to safeguard one's self by cultivating simple tastes, and by living with perfect integrity on that basis which is his rightfully, striving of all things for contentment. I do not approve of your feeding your love of luxury, your desire for a wider field, even though I can easily forgive you for knowing that you are a remarkably pretty girl. You should not accept Hester's invitation, Prue; you should stay in your own place until you are old enough to carve your way through to what you want, and by that time I hope very much that you will see how lovely it is to live in the simple, noble, unworldly atmosphere in which you have been born and bred. If I were you I wouldn't ask my mother to let me go to Hester this winter." "There wouldn't be any use in my asking her if you disapprove," said Prue, half tempted to resentment, though she liked to be preached to by Cousin Peace. "There wouldn't be if I did approve, you rebellious child," smiled her cousin. "Mary would never expose her baby to the danger of having her golden head filled with the sort of ambition which leads to bitterness of soul." Cousin Peace stroked the golden head very kindly as she spoke, and Prue lifted it with a sigh. "Worldiness is beautiful to think about," she said, "but I wonder if worldliness isn't rather splendid to live? I can't help thinking it would be fine to enter a vast room, magnificently attired, and hear people catch their breath and whisper: 'There's the beautiful Miss Grey!'" Miss Charlotte laughed long and merrily. "Prue, you are just a little girl after all, and in spite of your great height! You haven't changed at all since the time that you used to get on that ragged old silk from the attic and trail about playing you were Mary of Scotland. Do you remember how you used to add: 'Before she was beheaded,' when we asked who you were, and you used to say: 'Mary Queen Scots'? I think I needn't have preached such a long sermon to you, if you have only such a childish ambition as that!" "Who's talking of ambitions?" cried Rob in the doorway. "Here is Polly going to have a birthday next week and be nine years old, and I have found out that her ambition is to have a lovely doll, all her own, so that she can feel that her child is not an adopted one, like Hortense." Rob came in, all fresh and glowing from the out-of-doors. Miss Charlotte put out her hand and Rob dropped Polly's little hand to clasp it.