Ichabod!--what is the feminine of Ichabod,
by the way, Trednoke? But, seriously, it's
too bad. Susan may have been fickle, but
she was always aristocratic. And now her
daughter is a shop-girl. You and I are
avenged!"

"You are just as ridiculous, Meschines,
as you were thirty or fifty years ago," said
the general, tranquilly. "You declaim for
the sake of hearing your own voice. Besides,
what you say is un-American. Grace
Parsloe, as I was saying, got a place as shop-
girl in one of the great New York stores.
I don't say she mightn't have done worse:
what I say is, I doubt whether she could
have done better. That house--I know one
of its founders, and I know what I'm talking
about--is like an enormous family, where
children are born, year after year, grow up,
and take their places in life according to
their quality and merit. What I mean is,
that the boy who drives a wagon for them
to-day, at three dollars a week, may control
one of their chief departments, or even
become a partner, before they're done with
him; and, mutatis mutandis, the same with
the girls. When these girls marry, it's apt
to be into a higher rank of life than they
were born in; and that fact, I take it, is a