_Mrs. H._ Oh, it's them hired gals, Ca'line. They've made me crazy with their shiftlessness. I do think Hannah Merria might stay at home, and look arter them. _Caroline._ My good step-mother has other affairs to occupy her time. You know she is one of the leaders of the Female Reform Club. _Mrs. H._ Then she'd better bring her club home, and trounce these sassy critters into some kind of reform (kee). _Caroline._ She thinks she is engaged in a noble work. She is the champion of her sex. _Mrs. H._ Champion fiddlesticks! There's no sense in such carryings-on. What would my old man, Hezekiah Hartshorn (kee)—bless his dear dead and gone memory—have thought if I'd 'a' gone off in this fashion, a meddlin' with things that women don't know nothin' about? When he took me for better or for wus, sez he to me, "Deborah, there's the old homestid,—a snug house and a likely farm,—all ours. Yeou take kere of the house, and I'll take kere of the farm. Outside I'll be master, inside you shall be mistress; and we won't interfere." That's all the bargain we ever made, and we stuck to it. I took good care to make his home pleasant; but meddlin' with his affairs would have ben as rediculous as it would have ben for him to stick his nose into the churn every time I made butter. No, indeed! Let woman do her own work, and leave man to his'n. _Caroline._ Ah, grandmother, the world has turned over a great many times since your day. Women have acquired larger ideas of usefulness, and have found in intellectual pursuits release from household drudgery. Triumphs in medical practice, and success in the pulpit, have fired them with ambition to take their place beside the sterner sex in those educational, scientific, and political spheres, for which they feel themselves equally well fitted. _Mrs. H._ (Kee.) Do hear that young 'un talk; and she don't believe a word of it, nuther. _Caroline._ But my good step-mother does; and, if she can elevate her sex, she is doing a noble work. _Mrs. H._ Noble cat's foot! If she wants to elervate her sex, as she calls it, let her stay to home, and look after things. If that Katie don't want elervating with a broomstick, then I'm mistaken (kee). Why don't she give you a eddication, instead of keeping you drudging about the house, when you should be at school with Florence? She's got your father's money, and that's all she keres for (kee). _Caroline._ I am contented, grandmother. I make no complaint. _Mrs. H._ 'Cause you're meek as Moses. But I'll give her a piece of my mind, you see ef I don't. _Caroline._ Don't get angry, grandmother. To-day Florence returns after six months' absence at school. Let her find every thing bright and pleasant. _Mrs. H._ Lor-a-massy! So she does. Well, I'm glad on it. Ef she don't upset things, then I'm greatly mistaken. (_Bell rings_, R.) She's a dear good girl.