"It is the most beautiful place I ever saw," the girl said.

Remembering the dingy boarding-house, Norah understood. "It is all simple and inexpensive," she said. "Miss Carpenter and I pride ourselves on the large amount of comfort we have achieved for a small amount of money. You see we have matting on the floor, with a few rugs; as our landlord would not do anything to the walls, we had a frieze made of this big-flowered paper which cost next to nothing, and relieves the whiteness; the white iron beds and the dressing-tables were not expensive, nor the draperies, which are in our line, you know." While she talked Norah opened the door into the next room.

"This is Miss Carpenter's," she said. "We are just alike, except that she is rose colored and I am blue."

There were some things Norah had not mentioned,--toilet articles such as Miss Martin had never seen outside of a show-case, and a silk dressing-gown of great daintiness that lay across a chair in Miss Carpenter's room.

"I was surprised when you said you kept a store,--you did not look like it; but if this is the way you live--" Miss Martin did not finish her sentence as she allowed Norah to take her hat.

That everything about the small domain impressed her, it was easy to see. The simple dinner served so deftly by Susanna, the appointments of the table, and by no means least, her two hostesses.

Before eight o'clock the basket makers arrived, with them Madelaine, who made a pretty pretence of being deeply grateful to Miss Pennington for allowing her to come. Miss Martin watched her with serious admiration in her eyes. Here was a girl little younger than herself, whose whole business in life was to be beautiful and engaging.

"I have brought my prettiest valentine to show you," Madelaine said.

"Isn't it a dear?" and taking from its box a gauzy fan, she held it out for inspection.

Norah, who was nearest, took it. "It is certainly pretty if not durable," she remarked.

"I hate durable things," said its owner, with a shrug of her dainty shoulders. "I know it cost a great deal, for I priced one like it."

"Madelaine!" expostulated her sister.

"Goosie, I don't mean since this came."

"And you don't know who sent it?" asked Charlotte.

"Think of sending a gift like this and not getting the credit for it,"

said Miss Sarah, viewing it from a practical standpoint.

"If I knew who sent it, mamma wouldn't let me keep it,--at least Alex wouldn't,--so of course I do not know."

It was impossible not to smile at her.

"You are a fraud, Madelaine," Miss Sarah said. "I wish I had the money some people spend on valentines."

"James Mandeville has a more practical mind than Miss Russell's unknown admirer; he delivered his valentines in person and demanded full credit," Marion observed.

Norah whispered to Alex, "Please be nice to my little girl," so Alex took a seat beside Miss Martin and showed her how to begin a basket.

"Miss Pennington says you are a stenographer. I am trying to learn, but I am hopelessly stupid. Do you think one can learn by one's self?"

"I learned at the Business College," answered Miss Martin; and looking Alex up and down she added, "but you do not have to do it, do you? I am glad I can support myself, but there are other ways,--like this,--only I never dreamed of it before. In a business office generally you are just part of a machine." Discovering that Miss Wilbur, too, was listening, she came to an embarra.s.sed pause.

"What would you do if you were to become suddenly rich, Miss Sarah?"

Madelaine asked, and everybody stopped to listen.

"Lose my mind, probably," was the answer.

"Riches make people so dreadfully commonplace," said Norah.

"What can be more commonplace than poverty?" Alex demanded.

"Well, I suppose both extremes are bad. It is, after all, the people who have neither poverty nor riches who have ideas and make something out of life."

"I could get heaps out of life if I were rich," Madelaine said.

"I still insist that rich people are to a considerable extent unoriginal and stupid. They a.s.sociate with persons exactly like themselves, do the same things, say the same things, eat the same things--"

"This is Miss Pennington's hobby," Marion remarked, smiling.

"What would you do if you were to become rich?" Miss Virginia asked her.

"I believe I should go on with the shop for the present," was the reply.

"I think I should start a Settlement like the one you have told me about," Alex said, turning to Norah. "But then," she added, "I should have to learn a great deal first. You can't do anything that amounts to anything without learning how."

Miss Sarah had been meditating, now she spoke, "I think I'd try to give a good time to some persons who never have any fun, to whom life is only a grind."

"There are so many of them," added Miss Martin, timidly.

"I am afraid I have always been dreadfully selfish," sighed Miss Virginia.

"Oh, no, Virginia, you aren't that," said Miss Sarah. "Like some of the rest of us, you may have lived in a small circle, but within its bounds no one could accuse you of selfishness. Let's all promise to remember each other when we come into our fortunes," she added.

After they had gone,--Miss Martin lingering to say with shy earnestness, "I have had _such_ a good time," and receiving in return a cordial invitation to consider herself a member of the basket society,--Norah joined Marion before the fire.

"Do you know, Wayland Leigh gave that fan to Madelaine," she said.

"Are you sure? It must have cost twenty-five or thirty dollars."

"I saw him looking at them the other day. I rather suspect his aunts have spoiled him."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD

NEIGHBORS

Late in February, after some weeks of unusually cold weather, an epidemic of grip developed. In the Terrace there were several victims, among the first the Leighs' cook; and when it came to filling her place, it was discovered that she was by no means the only member of that useful profession laid low. It was quite impossible to find a subst.i.tute. Miss Sarah was obliged to do her own cooking, with the a.s.sistance of a not very intelligent housemaid.

There were ten in her family now, and it was no light task; but she might have proved equal to it if she had not been overworking all winter. Her spare moments had been given to sewing and embroidering for the shop, she had indulged and petted her aunt and Wayland just as usual, besides attending to her housekeeping in the most painstaking fashion; and all the while like an ominous cloud hovering over her was the doubt whether she would be able to make the two ends meet.

Perhaps she was extravagant with the table, but during her brother's lifetime they had lived in an easy, lavish way, and she knew no other.

It hurt Miss Sarah,--foolishly, but naturally,--that her nephew should have to pay board out of his small salary; and when one week he omitted to hand her the usual five dollars, she could not bear to ask him for it, although the lack of it put her to some inconvenience.

To Wayland things seemed moving on easily enough at home. He had become almost reconciled to the boarders, who made possible the more elaborate table; and it seemed to him quite impossible that so small a sum could make any great difference. He meant to pay it in time, but just now he was hard up. He had made the mistake of trying to be a society man, to compete with those whose incomes were many times as large as his own. In his heart he knew the purchase of that fan for Madelaine was a piece of inexcusable extravagance, but he had been too weak to resist.