“I don’t know as I could finish,” said Bel Bree, “except by going and living it out.  And that is just what I think we have got to do.  I’ve said it before; the girls know I have; but I’m surer than ever of it now.  Why, where does all the work come from, but out of the homes?  I know some kinds may always have to be done in the lump; but there’s ever so much that might be done where it is wanted, and everybody be better off.  We want homes; and we want real people to work for; those two things.  I know we do.  A lot of stuff, and miles of stitches, ain’t work; it don’t make real human beings, I think.  It makes business, I suppose, and money; I don’t know what it all comes round to, though, for anybody; more spending, perhaps, and more having, but not half so much being.  At any rate, it don’t come round in that to us; and we’ve got to look out for ourselves.  If we get right, who knows but other folks may get righter in consequence?  What I think is, that wherever there’s a family,—­a father and a mother and little children,—­there’s work to do, and a home to do it in; and we girls who haven’t homes and little children, and perhaps sha’n’t ever have,—­ain’t much likely to have as things are now,—­could be happier and safer, and more used to what we ought to be used to in case we should,”—­(Bel’s sentences were getting to be very rambling and involved, but her thoughts urged her on, and everybody’s in the room followed her),—­“if we went right in where the things were wanted, and did them.  The sewing,—­and the cooking,—­and the sweeping, too; everything; I mean, whatever we could; any of it.  You call it ‘living out,’ and say you won’t do it, but what you do now is the living out!  We could afford to go and say to people who are worrying about poor help and awful wages,—­’We’ll come and do well by you for half the money.  We know what homes are worth.’  And wouldn’t some of them think the millennium was come? I am going to try it.”

Bel stopped.  She did not think of such a thing as having made a speech; she had only said a little—­just as it came—­of what she was full of.

“You’ll get packed in with a lot of dirty servants.  You won’t have the home.  You’ll only have the work of it.”

“No, Kate Sencerbox.  I sha’n’t do that; because I’m going to persuade you to go with me.  And we’ll make the home, if they give us ever so little a corner of it.  And as soon as they find out what we are, they’ll treat us accordingly.”

Kate Sencerbox shrugged her shoulders.

“The world isn’t going to be made all over in a day,—­nor Boston either; not if it is all burnt up to begin with.”

“That is true, Kate,” said Desire Ledwith.  “You will have difficulties.  But you have difficulties now.  And wouldn’t it be worth while to change these that are growing worse, for such as might grow better?  Wouldn’t it be grand to begin to make even a little piece of the world over?”