“Because I earnestly wish I had not joined.  I cannot give up Cassandra, nor Alice, nor—­nor other girls.”

“Nonsense, Ruth!  You dare not fail me now,” said Kathleen, with enthusiasm.  “I will make it up to you.  You shall come with me to Ireland in the summer.  You shall.  Oh Ruth, don’t fail me!”

“I won’t; but I hate that rule.”

“And, girls, I think we must part now,” said Kate Rourke.  “It is getting late, and it would never do for our secret meetings to be discovered.”

“Whatever happens, we must stick together,” said Kathleen.  “Well, good-night; we meet again this day week.”

There was quite a flutter of excitement along that lonely road as the Wild Irish Girls returned to their different homes.  Susy Hopkins felt quite the happiest and most light-hearted of any.  By-and-by she and Ruth Craven found themselves the only girls who were walking down the road called Southwood Lane.  This road led right into the centre of the shops where Susy’s mother lived.

“What a good thing,” said Susy, “that I took the latchkey with me!  It is past ten o’clock.  Mother would be wild if she had to sit up so late.”

Ruth was silent.

“Aren’t you happy, Ruthie?  Don’t you think it is all splendid?” cried Susy.

“Yes and no,” said Ruth.  “You see, I am a foundationer, and when she pressed me to join I hated not to; but now I am sorry that I have joined.  What am I to do about Cassandra and about Alice?”

“You think a great deal about Cassandra, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes; she is quite a splendid girl, and she has been so very good to me.”

“I suppose you are quite in love with her?”

“No, I don’t think I am.  It isn’t my way to fall violently in love with girls, like some of the rest of you.  But I like her; and I like Alice Tennant.”

“All the same,” said Susy, “it is worth sacrificing a little thing to belong to the Wild Irish Girls.  Did you ever in all your life see any one look more splendid than Kathleen as she stood with the light of those big lamps upon her?  She is a wonderful girl—­so graceful, and with such a power of eloquence.  And she has such a way of just taking you by storm; and her language is so poetic.  Oh, I adore her!  She is the sort of girl that I could die for.  If all Irish girls are like her, Ireland must be a wonderful country to live in.”

“But they are not,” said Ruth.  “Half of them are quite commonplace.  She happens to be rich and beautiful, and to have a taking way; but all the others are not like her, I am certain of it.”

“Anyhow, whether they are or not, I am glad to belong to the society,” said Susy.  “It will give us great fun, and we need not mind now whether the paying girls are disagreeable to us or not.  Then, too, think of the blouses we have got.  Oh dear! oh dear! when I put mine on on Sunday mother will gape.  I shall feel proud of myself in it.  It was just sweet of her to get things like this to give us.  And she knew we weren’t well off.  Oh, I do think she’s one in a thousand!  She must have thought of you, Ruth, when she ordered these sweet pale-blue colors, for that color is yours, isn’t it?”