"Of course," said Julia vaguely.
"Classes of the smaller girls should keep this kitchen and bathroom like a pin," said Miss Toland sharply. "And, as soon as we get a regular manager in here—Now that's what I tell my sister Sally, that is Mrs. Toland," she broke off to say. "Here's Barbara, home from a finishing school and six months abroad. Why couldn't she step in here? But no! Barbara'll come in now and then if it's a special occasion—"
"But she has such wonderful good times at home; she has everything in the world now," Julia said wistfully. Miss Toland gave her a shrewd glance; it was as if she saw Julia for the first time.
"Barbara?" Barbara's aunt poured herself another cup of tea, and fell into thought for a few moments. Then she set down her cup, straightened herself suddenly, and burst forth: "Barbara! That's one of the most absurd things in the world, you know—the supposition that a girl like Barbara is perfectly happy! Perfectly wretched and discontented, if you ask me!"
"Oh, no!" Julia protested.
"Oh, yes! Barbara's idle, she's useless, she doesn't know what to do with herself. No girl of her age does. I know, for my mother brought me up in the same way. She got a lot of half-baked notions in school; she had a year of college in which to get a lot more; she came home afraid to go back to college for fear of missing something at home, afraid of staying home for fear of missing something at college; compromised on six months in Europe. Now, here she is, the finished product. We've been spending twelve years getting Barbara ready for something, and, as a result, she's ready for nothing! What does she know of the world? Absolutely nothing! She's never for one instant come in contact with anything real—she can't. She's been so educated that she wouldn't know anything real if she saw it! Mind you," said Miss Toland, fixing the somewhat bewildered Julia with a stern eye, "mind you, I admit it's hard for people of income to bring a girl up sensibly. 'But,' I've said to my sister-in-law, 'hand me over one of the younger girls—I'll promise you that she'll grow up something more than a poor little fashionably dressed doll, looking sidewise out of her eyes at every man she meets, to see whether he'll marry her or not!' Of course there's only one answer to that. I've never married, and I don't know anything about it!"
"Miss Toland will marry," Julia submitted.
"Perhaps she will," her aunt said. "Perhaps, again, she won't. But at all events, it's a rather flat business, all this rushing about to dinners and dances; it'll last a few years perhaps—then what? I tell you what, my dear, there's only one good thing in this world, and that's work—self-expression. It hurts my pride every time I see a nice girl growing older year after year, idle, expensive, waiting for some man to miraculously happen along and take her out of it. I tell you the interesting lives are those of people who've had to work up from the bottom. A working girl may have her troubles, but they're real. Why, let's suppose that Barbara marries, that she marries the man her mother has picked out, for example, still she doesn't get away from the tiring, the sickening conventions that all her set has laid down for her! I wish I had my own girlhood to live over—I know that!" finished the older woman, with a gloomy nod.
"Miss Toland seems to me to have everything in the world," Julia said, in childish protest. "She's—she's beautiful, and every one loves her. She's always been rich enough to do what she pleased, and go places, and wear what she liked! And—and"—Julia's eyes watered suddenly—"and she's a lady," she added unsteadily. "She's always been told how to do things, she's—she's different from—from girls who have had no chances, who—"
Her voice thickened, speech became too difficult, and she stopped, looking down at her teacup through a blur of tears. Miss Toland watched her for a silent moment or two; despite all her oddities, no woman who ever lived had a kinder heart or a keener insight than Anna Toland. It was in a very winning tone that she presently said: