"He has been useful as my errand boy," said Edith contemptuously, "and that's all he amounts to as far as I'm concerned. I am disgusted with men. Who in all our trouble has been noble and knightly toward us?--" "Be still, children; stop your quarrelling," broke in Mrs. Allen. "You have got to take the world as you find it. Men of our day don't act like knights any more than they dress like them. The point I wish you to understand is that we must keep every hold we have on our old life and society. Next winter some of my friends will invite you to visit them in the city and then who knows what may happen?"--and she nodded significantly. Then she added, with a regretful sigh, "What chances you girls have had! There's Cheatem, Argent, Livingston, Pamby, and last and best, Goulden, who might have been secured if Laura had been more prompt, and a host of others. Edith had better have taken Mr. Fox, even, than have had all this happen." An expression of disgust came out on Edith's face, and she said, "It seems to me that I would rather go to work than take any of them." "You don't know anything about work," said Mrs. Allen. "It's a great deal easier to marry a fortune than to make one, and a woman can't make a fortune. Marrying well is the only chance you girls have now, and it's my only chance to live again as a lady ought, and I want to see to it that nothing is done to spoil these chances." Laura listened with a dull assent, conscious that she would marry any man _now_ who would give her an establishment and enable her to sweep past Mr. Goulden in elegant scorn. Zell listened, purposing to marry Mr. Van Dam, though Edith's words raised a vague uneasiness in her mind, and she longed to see him again, meaning to make him more explicit. Edith listened with a cooling adherence to this familiar faith and doctrine of the world in which the mother had brought up her children. She had a glimmering perception that the course indicated was not sound in general, or best for them in particular. "And now," continued Mrs. Allen, becoming more definite, "we must have a new roof put on the house right away, or we shall all be drowned out, and the house must be painted, a door-bell put in, and fences and things generally put in order. We must fit this room up as a parlor, and we can use the little room there as a dining and sitting-room. Laura and I will take the chamber over the kitchen, and the one over this can be kept as a spare room, so that if any of our city friends come out to see us, they can stay all night." "Oh, mother, the proposed arrangements will make us all uncomfortable, you especially," remonstrated Edith. "No matter, I've set my heart on our getting back to the old life, and we must not stop at trifles." "But are you sure we have money to spare for all these improvements?" continued Edith anxiously.