"Mr. Weston watched the procession." "Only coarse women would do such a thing! And Arthur Weston might have had something better to do!" Frederica held on to herself; she even refrained from quoting Mr. Weston's comment on the parade: "No doubt there were women in the procession who liked to be conspicuous; but there were others who marched with the consecration of martyrs and patriots!" But of course it needed only a word to bring an explosion. The word was innocent enough: "That Maitland boy," said Mrs. Holmes--"I've dropped my napkin, Flora; pick it up--why did he suddenly leave everything and go off?" "Freddy says he's gone to dig shells," said Mrs. Payton. "Dig what?" said Mrs. Holmes; "people mumble so nowadays, nobody can understand them! Oh, shells? Yes. Funny thing to do, but I believe it's quite the thing for rich young men to amuse themselves in some scientific way. I suppose it doesn't need brains, as business does." "It isn't amusement," Frederica said; "it's work." Upon which her grandmother retorted, shrewdly: "Anything you do because you want to, not because you have to, is an amusement, my dear. Like your real-estate business." Frederica's lip hardened. "However," Mrs. Holmes conceded, "to make his way in the world, a rich man, fortunately, doesn't need to be intelligent, any more than a pretty girl needs to be clever"--she gave her granddaughter a malicious glance; "all the same, young Maitland had better settle down and get married, and spend some of the Maitland money. (There goes my napkin again, Flora!)" "I'd have no respect for him, if he did," Fred said. "He would be too much like this family--living on dead brains." Her grandmother turned angry eyes on Mrs. Payton. "You may know what your daughter means, Ellen; I'm sure I don't!" "I'll tell you what I mean," Frederica said, "you and Mother simply live on the money your husbands made and left you when they died. Since you were a girl, when you had to work because you were poor, you have never done a hand's turn to earn your living. Mother has never done anything. You are both parasites. Well, I am, too; but there's this difference between us: I am ashamed, and you are not. I am trying to do something for myself. But the only thing you two will do for yourselves will be to die." She looked at her speechless grandmother, appraisingly. "Yes, death will be a real thing to you, Grandmother. You can't get anybody else to do your dying for you." "Ellen! _Really!_" Mrs. Holmes gasped out. "Freddy, stop!" her mother said, hysterically. "Well, what have either of you ever done to earn what you are at this moment eating?" Fred inquired, calmly.