“But mother, dear, a great deal will come of it all,” Cornelia was mildly reproachful.  “You couldn’t inspect babies and do nursing yourself, dear!  Investigating and tabulating and reporting are very difficult things to do!”

“Sometimes I think, Cornelia, that the world was much pleasanter for women when things were more primitive.  When they just had households and babies to look out for, when every one was personally needed.”

“Mother, dear!” Cornelia protested indulgently.  “Then we haven’t progressed at all since Mayflower days?”

“Oh, perhaps we have!” Mrs. Phelps shrugged doubtfully.  “But I am sometimes sorry,” she went on, half to herself, “that birth and wealth and position have kept me all my life from real things!  I can’t help my friends in sickness or trouble, Cornelia, I don’t know what’s coming on my own table for dinner, or what the woman next door looks like!  I can only keep on the surface of things, dressing a certain way, eating certain things, writing notes, sending flowers, making calls!”

“All of which our class—­the rich and cultivated people of the world—­have been struggling to achieve for generations!” Cornelia reminded her.  “Do you mean you would like to be a laborer’s mother, mater, with all sorts of annoying economies to practice, and all sorts of inconveniences to contend with?”

“Yes, perhaps I would!” her mother laughed defiantly.

“I can see you’ve had another letter from California,” said Cornelia, pleasantly, after a puzzled moment.  “You are still a pioneer in spite of the ten generations, mater.  Austin’s wife is not a lady, Austin is absolutely different from what he was, the people out there are actually common, and yet, just because they like to have you, and think you are intelligent and instructive, you want to go.  Go if you want to, but I will think you are mad if you do!  A girl who confused ‘La Boheme’ with ‘The Bohemian Girl,’ and wants an enlarged crayon portrait of Austin in her drawing-room!  Really, it’s—­well, it’s remarkable to me.  I don’t know what you see in it!”

“Crayon portraits used to be considered quite attractive, and may be again,” said Mrs. Phelps, mildly.  “And some day your children will think Puccini and Strauss as old-fashioned as you think ‘Faust’ and Offenbach.  But there are other things, like the things that a woman loves to do, for instance, when her children are grown, and her husband is dead, that never change!”

Cornelia was silent, frankly puzzled.

“Wouldn’t you rather do nothing than take up the stupid routine work of a woman who has no money, no position, and no education?” she asked presently.

“I don’t believe I would,” her mother answered, smiling.  “Perhaps I’ve changed.  Or perhaps I never sat down and seriously thought things out before.  I took it for granted that our way of doing things was the only way.  Of course I don’t expect every one to see it as I do.  But it seems to me now that I belong there.  When she first called me ‘Mother Phelps,’ it made me angry, but what sweeter thing could she have said, after all?  She has no mother.  And she needs one, now.  I don’t think you have ever needed me in your life, Cornelia—­actually needed me, my hands and my eyes and my brain.”