"What extravagance for a young girl!" exclaimed Mrs. Manning. "Pink silk indeed, and a train! Betty will be so flighty when she comes back there will be no getting along with her. 'Lecty has grown very worldly, I think. I have never found any occasion for a pink silk."
Mrs. Leverett sighed. And Betty was not yet seventeen!
Mrs. Manning took James home with her, for she said grandmother was spoiling him. She kept the children with a pretty strict hand at home, and they soon jumped over the traces when you gave them a little liberty. She was very glad to have him go to school all winter and hoped he had made some improvement.
She was very brisk and energetic and was surprised to think they were letting Doris grow up into such a helpless, know-nothing sort of girl. And her daughter of nine was like a steady little woman.
"Still it isn't wise to put too much on her," said Mrs. Leverett in mild protest. "Where one cannot help it, why, you must; but I think life is getting a little easier, and children ought to have their share of it."
"I'm not asking anything of her that I did not do," returned Mrs. Manning. "And I am proud of my training and my housekeeping."
"But it was so different then. Your father and I began life with only a few hundred dollars. Then there was his three years in the war, and people were doing everything for themselves—spinning and weaving and dyeing, and making clothes of every kind. To be sure I make soap and candles," laughing a little; "but we have only one cow now and give half the milk for her care. I really felt as if I ought not have Martha, but father insisted."
"I don't see why Doris couldn't have done a good deal instead of poring over books so much."
"Well—you see she isn't really our own. Cousin Winthrop has some ideas about her education. She will have a little money, too, if everything turns out right."
"It's just the way to spoil girls. And you will find, mother, that Betty will be none the better for her visit to 'Lecty. Dear me! I don't see how 'Lecty can answer to her conscience, spending money that way. We couldn't. It's wrong and sinful. And it's wrong to bring up any child in a helpless, do-little fashion."