“Things seem so easy,” the girl would say.  “It is just like two times one.”

So it was; because we did not jumble in all the Analysis and Compound Proportion of housekeeping right on top of the multiplication-table.  She would get on by degrees; by and by she would be in evolution and geometrical progression without knowing how she got there.  If you want a house, you must build it up, stone by stone, and stroke by stroke; if you want a servant, you, or somebody for you, must build one, just the same; they do not spring up and grow, neither can be “knocked together.”  And I tell you, busy, eager women of this day, wanting great work out of doors, this is just what “we girls,” some of us,—­and some of the best of us, perhaps,—­have got to stay at home awhile and do.

“It is one of the little jobs that has been waiting for a good while to be done,” says Barbara; “and Miss Pennington has found out another.  ‘There may be,’ she says, ’need of women for reorganizing town meetings; I won’t undertake to say there isn’t; but I’m sure there’s need of them for reorganizing parlor meetings.  They are getting to be left altogether to the little school-girl “sets.”  Women who have grown older, and can see through all that nonsense, and have the position and power to break it up, ought to take hold.  Don’t you think so?  Don’t you think it is the duty of women of my age and class to see to this thing before it grows any worse?’ And I told her,—­right up, respectful,—­Yes’m; it wum!  Think of her asking me, though!”

Just as things were getting to be so different and so nice on West Hill, it seemed so hard to leave it!  Everything reminded us of that.

A beautiful plan came up for Ruth, though, at this time.  What with the family worries,—­which Ruth always had a way of gathering to herself, and hugging up, prickers in, as if so she could keep the nettles from other people’s fingers,—­and her hard work at her music, she was getting thin.  We were all insisting that she must take a vacation this summer, both from teaching and learning; when, all at once, Miss Pennington made up her mind to go to West Point and Lake George, and to take Penelope with her; and she came over and asked Ruth to go too.

“If you don’t mind a room alone, dear; I’m an awful coward to have come of a martial family, and I must have Pen with me nights.  I’m nervous about cars, too; I want two of you to keep up a chatter; I should be miserable company for one, always distracted after the whistles.”

Ruth’s eyes shone; but she colored up, and her thanks had half a doubt in them.  She would tell Auntie:  and they would think how it could be.

“What a nice way for you to go!” said Barbara, after Miss Pennington left.  “And how nice it will be for you to see Dakie!” At which Ruth colored up again, and only said that “it would certainly be the nicest possible way to go, if she were to go at all.”