“And you like being alone?” “Yes. Up to a certain point it is the best thing for all of us, mother says.” “Do you go to school, Sunbeam?” “No. We never go till we are old enough.” “What do you mean by that?” “We never go till we are about fifteen.” “And your boys, when do they go?” “At the same age.” “Don’t they get out of bounds and management by that time?” I asked. “Oh, no—why should they?” “I don’t know. I imagined it was best for a boy to go to school when he was seven, and stay there, generally speaking, till he was past twenty.” Sunbeam laughed. “He’ll be very wise when he comes out of school,” she said. “We take a five years’ course, boys and girls alike.” “Do you attend the same schools?” “Oh, no. We don’t even learn the same lessons. But you’ll have to ask mother or father about school. They know more about it than I do, because they’ve been.” “Is your education finished when you are twenty?” I continued. “Oh, no! Mother says it’s only just begun.” “Still,” said I, “don’t your boys get rather spoilt staying at home till that age? There is so little for them to do.” “They help with the housework,” she rejoined. “And do they like it?” “Of course. It’s their duty. If you cannot work in the house you’ll never work out of it—not in a proper spirit.” “What is their work in the house?” “Well, it’s the usual work that you’ve seen going on this morning, and anything else that may occur. Then, of course, we have lessons with our mothers, and they take up the afternoons, and the evenings from tea to bed-time we have entirely to ourselves.” “And which part of the day do you like best?” “I don’t know. I like them all.” “You have no sisters or brothers?” I questioned. She shook her head thoughtfully. “I have one sister,” she answered. “But at times she goes away and leaves us, and we are lonely till she comes again. Moonbeam used to have a brother, but he went away to school a long time ago. He used to be very good at making beds.” “Making beds!” I repeated. “Why not?” she inquired. “Nothing, nothing. I thought it rather a curious occupation.” “We don’t know him very well,” she continued, scarcely noticing my last remark. “He went away to school in the city long before Moonbeam was born, and she is older than I even. He used always to make the beds at home before he went, and when he went they missed him so much that his mother wrote to tell him she hadn’t slept for two nights, everything seemed so strange, and not near so comfortable. Well, when he got that letter he was sitting at breakfast with the rest, and suddenly he just put his head down on the table and cried.” “But why?” “Well, don’t you see, it had been his secret. When he had the time to himself at night he’d been thinking and thinking about it all, and he’d tried one thing and then he’d tried another.” “Do you mean he had concentrated all his energies on bed-making?”