“Jack, dear,” said his wife, tenderly, always careful not to wound the feelings of this unsuccessful man who was still so loving and so full of chivalry, “you needn’t mind that in the very least.  The girl who doesn’t want to earn money for herself in these days is in the minority.  Girls feel it in the air.  They all fret and worry, or most of them do, until they are allowed to measure their strength and test the commercial worth of what they have acquired.  You are a dear old fossil, Jack.  Just look at it in this way:  Suppose Mrs. Vanderhoven, brought up in the purple, taught to play a little, to embroider a little, to speak a little French—­to do a little of many things and nothing well—­had been given the sort of education that in her day was the right of every gentleman’s son, though denied the gentleman’s daughter, would her life be so hard and narrow and distressful now?  Would she be reduced to taking in fine washing and hemstitching, and canning fruit?”

“Canning fruit, mother dear,” said Miriam, who had just come in to procure fresh towels for the bedrooms, “is a fine occupation.  Several women in the United States are making their fortunes at that.  Eva and I, who haven’t Grace’s talents, are thinking of taking it up in earnest.  I can make preserves, I rejoice to say.”

“When you are ready to begin, you shall have my blessing,” said her father.  “I yield to the new order of things.”  Then as the pretty elder daughter disappeared, a sheaf of white lavender-perfumed towels over her arm, he said:  “Now, dear, I perceive your point.  Archie Vanderhoven’s accident has, however, occurred in the very best possible time for Grace.  The King’s Daughters—­you know what a breezy Ten they are, with our Eva and the Raeburns’ Amy among them—­are going to give a lift to Archie, not to his mother, who might take offence.  All the local talent of our young people is already enlisted.  Our big dining-room is to be the hall of ceremonies, and I believe they are to have tableaux, music, readings and refreshments.  This will come off on the first moonlight night, and the proceeds will all go to Archie, to be kept, probably, as a nest-egg for his college expenses.  That mother of his means him to go through college, you know, if she has to pay the fees by hard work, washing, ironing, scrubbing, what not.”

“I hope the boy’s worth it,” said Mrs. Wainwright, doubtfully.  “Few boys are.”

“The right boy is,” said the doctor, firmly.  “In our medical association there’s one fellow who is on the way to be a famous surgeon.  He’s fine, Jane, the most plucky, persistent man, with the eye, and the nerve, and the hand, and the delicacy and steadiness of the surgeon born in him, and confirmed by training.  Some of his operations are perfectly beautiful, beautiful!  He’ll be famous over the whole world yet.  His mother was an Irish charwoman, and she and he had a terrible tug to carry him through his studies.”