"And where would you have been, mother?"
"Me?" said Mrs. Saunders again, incorrigibly. "Oh, I guess I should have been somewhere!"
"Well, I'll tell you what," Mrs. Burton broke in, "Nie must go, and that's all about it. I know from what Mr. Ludlow said that he believes she could be an artist. She would have to work hard, but I don't call teaching school play, exactly."
"Indeed it isn't!" said Mrs. Saunders. "I'd sooner set all day at the machine myself, and dear knows that's trying enough!"
"I'm not afraid of the hard work," said Cornelia.
"What are you afraid of, then?" demanded her mother. "Afraid of failing?"
"No; of succeeding," answered Cornelia, perversely.
"I can't make the child out," said Mrs. Saunders, with apparent pleasure in the mystery.
Cornelia went on, at least partially, to explain herself. "I mean, succeeding in the way women seem to succeed. They make me sick!"
"Oh," said her mother, with sarcasm that could not sustain itself even by a smile letting Mrs. Burton into the joke, "going to be a Rosa Bonnhure?"