Mrs. Holabird set her bowl on the table, and poured in the ice-water. Then the golden dust, turned and cut lightly by the chopper, gathered into a tender, mellow mass, and she lifted it out upon the board. She shook out the scalded cloth, spread it upon the emptied bowl, sprinkled it snowy-thick with flour, rolled out the crust with a free quick movement, and laid it on, into the curve of the basin. Barbara brought the apples, cut up in white fresh slices, and slid them into the round. Mrs. Holabird folded over the edges, gathered up the linen cloth in her hands, tied it tightly with a string, and Barbara disappeared with it behind the damask screen, where a puff of steam went up in a minute that told the pudding was in. Then Mrs. Holabird went into the pantry-closet and washed her hands, that never really came to need more than a finger-bowl could do for them, and Barbara carried after her the board and its etceteras, and the red cloth was drawn on again, and there was nothing, but a low, comfortable bubble in the chimney-corner to tell of house-wifery or dinner. "I wish it had lasted longer," said Miss Elizabeth. "I am afraid I shall feel like company again now." "I am ashamed to tell you what I came for," said Madam Pennington. "It was to ask about a girl. Can I do anything with Winny Lafferty?" "I wish you could," said Mrs. Holabird, benevolently. "She needs doing with" said Barbara. "Your having her would be different from our doing so," said Mrs. Holabird. "I often think that one of the tangles in the girl-question is the mistake of taking the rawest specimens into families that keep but one. With your Lucy, it might be the very making of Winny to go to you." "The 'next' for her, as Ruth would say," said Barbara. "Yes. The least little thing that comes next is better than a world full of wisdom away off beyond. There is too much in 'general housework' for one ignorant, inexperienced brain to take in. What should we think of a government that gave out its 'general field-work' so?" "There won't be any Lucys long," said Madam Pennington, with a sigh. "What are homes coming to?" "Back to _homes_, I hope, from _houses_ divided against themselves into parlors and kitchens," said mother, earnestly. "If I should tell you all I think about it, you would say it was visionary, I am afraid. But I believe we have got to go back to first principles; and then the Lucys will grow again." "Modern establishments are not homes truly," said Madam Pennington. "We shall call them by their names, as the French do, if we go on," said mother,--"hotels." "And how are we to stop, or help it? The enemy has got possession. Irishocracy is a despotism in the land."