“Sometimes they are.  Miss Lathrop, if I were you I shouldn’t sell or mortgage yet.  I am inclined to believe, judging by this balance sheet and what you say, that you have a chance to pull Hamilton and Company out of the fire, and I’m very sure you can do it if anyone can.  Are you going to be in the city for a day or two?  Good!  Then will you let me consider this whole matter until—­say—­Thursday?  By that time I shall have made up my mind and may have something to say which will be worth while.  Can you come in Thursday afternoon at two?  And will you?  Very well.  Oh, don’t thank me!  I haven’t done anything yet.  Perhaps I shall not be able to, but we shall hope for the best.”

Mary went straight to Mrs. Wyeth’s home on Pinckney Street and once more occupied her pleasant room on the third floor.  In spite of her determination not to care she could not help feeling a little pang as she walked by the Misses Cabot’s school and remembered that she would never again enjoy the privileges and advantages of that exclusive institution.  She wondered how the girls, her classmates, had felt and spoken when they heard the news that she had left them and returned to Cape Cod and storekeeping.  Some would sneer and laugh—­she knew that—­and some might be a little sorry.  But they would all forget her, of course.  Doubtless, most of them had forgotten her already.

But the fact that all had not forgotten was proved that very evening when, as she and Mrs. Wyeth and Miss Pease were sitting talking together in the parlor, Maggie, the maid, answering the ring of the doorbell, ushered in Miss Barbara Howe.  Barbara was, as usual, arrayed like the lilies of the field, but her fine petals were decidedly crumpled by the hug which she gave Mary as soon as she laid eyes upon her.

“You bad girl!” she cried.  “Why didn’t you tell me you were in town?  And why didn’t you answer my letter—­the one I wrote you at South Harniss?  I didn’t hear a word and only tonight, after dinner, I had the inspiration of phoning Mrs. Wyeth and trying to learn from her where you were and what you meant by dropping all your friends.  Maggie answered the phone and said you were here and I threw on my things—­yes, ‘threw’ is the word; nothing else describes the process—­and came straight over.  How do you do?  And what are you doing?”

Mary said she was well and that she had been too busy to reply to Miss Howe’s letter.  But this did not satisfy.  Barbara wanted to know why she had been busy and how, so Mary told of her determination to remain in South Harniss and become a business woman, Barbara was greatly excited and enthusiastic.