her week of absolute leisure, which she had earned by a season of hard
work. She is a public-school teacher, belonging to a section and grade
where they work their teachers fourteen hours of the twenty-four.

Alice is a music-teacher, and goes all day from house to house in town, and
from school to school, with her music-roll in hand. Ben, a young brother,
is studying medicine in a doctor's office, also in town, and serving the
doctor between times to pay for his opportunities. There are two others, an
older brother just started in business for himself, and a sister in a
training-school for nurses.

So it was that this large family scattered each morning to their duties in
the city ten miles away, and gathered at night, like chickens, to the home
nest, which was mothered by the dearest little woman, who gave much of her
time and strength to the preparation of favorite dishes with which to greet
the wage-earners as they gathered at night around the home table. It is a
very happy family, but it was not about any of them that I set out to tell
you. In truth, it was Muriel's apron that I wanted to talk about; but it
seemed necessary to describe the family in order to secure full
appreciation of the apron.

Muriel, I should tell you, is still a high-school girl, hoping to be
graduated next year, though at times a little anxious lest she may not
pass, and with ambitions to enter college as soon as possible.

The entire family have ambitions for Muriel, and I believe that she will
get to college in another year. But about her apron. I saw it first one
morning when I crossed the street to my neighbor's side door that opens
directly into the large living-room, and met Muriel in the doorway, as
pretty a picture as a fair-haired, bright-eyed girl of seventeen can make.