"O Mary," said Jane, as she settled a bonnet on the stand, "I do so often wish we were not milliners. I have never told you yet what I have been thinking about it, because you are one yourself; but it seems to me quite a different sort of business from what it did when I began it." "Does it? Why?" said Mary, going on with her work, which just then was the completion of a pretty little cap. "Why, what have we been doing now, but setting out temptations to people to come and spend their money on many things they do not really want, who will be persuaded to commit all sorts of extravagances, instead of doing good with the means that God has given them." [Illustration: The Young Milliners.] "I have thought of that," said Mary, "but I never persuade; I show the thing I am asked for, and it seems to me, that as people must have respectable clothing, they may as well buy what is new and pretty when they are about it." "Ah! But it is not what 'must' be had that I am objecting to; you will see, presently, many ladies will buy things they never thought of, just because Miss Baylis says they are fashionable, or cheap, or very becoming; and she says her bills are sure to be paid, because no lady likes her milliner's account to be known. Besides, Mary, one is obliged to be so insincere, and tell people things are becoming and suitable, when one sees all the while they are just the very opposite." "Obliged?" said Mary.—"Obliged to say what is not true, Jane?" "Miss Baylis thinks so, and Miss Robson does it without any scruple, as you will hear if you stay in the show-room." "But you and I, Jane?" "Well, dear Mary, not you, I am quite sure, but I can't say as much for myself; if I should be determined to get on, I may be tempted. And you may depend upon it that all who get on do it." "One might have a good business, I think, if one only worked for those who mean what they say, and want what they come to look at," said Mary. "Good enough to satisfy you, perhaps; but is it not the gay and fashionable, the vain and extravagant, who make milliners' fortunes?" "Well, but is it right to want to make a fortune? Does not the Bible say, 'He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent;' and 'They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts?' And they may do that in any kind of business." "Then you would not think it right to induce people to buy your goods?" "Not against my conscience, and, as you said just now, my sense of their being proper for them." "Well, now, whom would you wish to buy that pretty cap you have just finished so nicely?" "Some nice-looking lady, who can afford to sit still, I think," replied Mary, laughing, as she held up her work to see the effect; "for these gossamer quillings will never keep their proper places in a breeze." "Hush, Mary! Look, look!" whispered Jane. "Here come some ladies to get the first look at the thing." And two or three ladies advanced into the room.