improbable than that she would make a fortune for herself.

"Cousin Susan," she giggled scornfully, "You are a perfect silly!"

"That may be," admitted Cousin Susan, "but I'm telling you good solid sense. A proper amount of pleasure is as necessary to the real development of human beings as bread or boots. Every one admits that now. And you're not getting a proper amount, my dear. You aren't getting any! Why, you aren't living, you only breathe, and life is more than breathing. You are naturally impulsive. Can't you let yourself enjoy life instead of fear it? Yes, you are afraid of it. I've watched you. And from what you say I imagine that your room-mate was just another like you. I'm glad she has gone home. And[Pg 15] your clothes are a scandal. How many years have you worn that suit?"

[Pg 15]

Rebecca Mary's face turned a bright crimson to match the red-hot indignation inside of her. How dared Cousin Susan talk to her like that? She was doing the best she could. She shouldn't tell Cousin Susan how old her blue serge was. It was none of Cousin Susan's business.

"You wouldn't feel so shut out of the world if you looked like other people and went where other people go. I don't suppose you speak an unprofessional word all day," went on Cousin Susan with growing indignation at what she considered the waste of a perfectly good girl. "It's a crime, Rebecca Mary Wyman! A crime! And you needn't boast about your old age provision when you haven't the brains to make a sensible one. I'm as poor as a church mouse myself. Your Cousin Howard will never make more than a decent living, and we have two children to feed and clothe and educate. I hadn't any more business to come here for tea than I would have to go to the Zoo and buy a baboon for a parlor ornament. But if I don't do something occasionally to make a day stand out, something that it is a pleasure to remember, I never should be able to keep on patching Elsie's petticoats, and darning Kittie's stockings.[Pg 16] I know,—I know!—Rebecca Mary, that when you are young you live in the future, and when you are old you live in the past. Some one has said that memories are the only real fountain of youth. And that's true. A girl is young such a short time that she has to cram the days full if she wants to be sure of a happy old age. I can't imagine anything more awful than to have no good times to remember. And all pleasures aren't like the tea here. Such a lot of them can be had for nothing. You can get such fun just out of companionship, and the world is full of people with whom we 

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