Holabird. "I often think that one of the tangles in the girl-question
is the mistake of taking the rawest specimens into families that keep
but one. With your Lucy, it might be the very making of Winny to go to
you."

"The 'next' for her, as Ruth would say," said Barbara.

"Yes. The least little thing that comes next is better than a world
full of wisdom away off beyond. There is too much in 'general
housework' for one ignorant, inexperienced brain to take in. What
should we think of a government that gave out its 'general field-work'
so?"

"There won't be any Lucys long," said Madam Pennington, with a sigh.
"What are homes coming to?"

"Back to _homes_, I hope, from _houses_ divided against themselves
into parlors and kitchens," said mother, earnestly. "If I should tell
you all I think about it, you would say it was visionary, I am afraid.
But I believe we have got to go back to first principles; and then the
Lucys will grow again."

"Modern establishments are not homes truly," said Madam Pennington.

"We shall call them by their names, as the French do, if we go on,"
said mother,--"hotels."

"And how are we to stop, or help it? The enemy has got possession.
Irishocracy is a despotism in the land."