But neither St. Girard, nor Broad street, neither wonders of the Mint nor the glories of the Hall where the ghosts of our fathers sit always signing the Declaration; impressed the visitors so much as the splendors of the Chestnut street windows, and the bargains on Eighth street.  The truth is that the country cousins had come to town to attend the Yearly Meeting, and the amount of shopping that preceded that religious event was scarcely exceeded by the preparations for the opera in more worldly circles.

“Is thee going to the Yearly Meeting, Ruth?” asked one of the girls.

“I have nothing to wear,” replied that demure person.  “If thee wants to see new bonnets, orthodox to a shade and conformed to the letter of the true form, thee must go to the Arch Street Meeting.  Any departure from either color or shape would be instantly taken note of.  It has occupied mother a long time, to find at the shops the exact shade for her new bonnet.  Oh, thee must go by all means.  But thee won’t see there a sweeter woman than mother.”

“And thee won’t go?”

“Why should I?  I’ve been again and again.  If I go to Meeting at all I like best to sit in the quiet old house in Germantown, where the windows are all open and I can see the trees, and hear the stir of the leaves.  It’s such a crush at the Yearly Meeting at Arch Street, and then there’s the row of sleek-looking young men who line the curbstone and stare at us as we come out.  No, I don’t feel at home there.”

That evening Ruth and her father sat late by the drawing-room fire, as they were quite apt to do at night.  It was always a time of confidences.

“Thee has another letter from young Sterling,” said Eli Bolton.

“Yes.  Philip has gone to the far west.”

“How far?”

“He doesn’t say, but it’s on the frontier, and on the map everything beyond it is marked ‘Indians’ and ‘desert,’ and looks as desolate as a Wednesday Meeting.”

“Humph.  It was time for him to do something.  Is he going to start a daily newspaper among the Kick-a-poos?”

“Father, thee’s unjust to Philip.  He’s going into business.”

“What sort of business can a young man go into without capital?”

“He doesn’t say exactly what it is,” said Ruth a little dubiously, “but it’s something about land and railroads, and thee knows, father, that fortunes are made nobody knows exactly how, in a new country.”

“I should think so, you innocent puss, and in an old one too.  But Philip is honest, and he has talent enough, if he will stop scribbling, to make his way.  But thee may as well take care of theeself, Ruth, and not go dawdling along with a young man in his adventures, until thy own mind is a little more settled what thee wants.”

This excellent advice did not seem to impress Ruth greatly, for she was looking away with that abstraction of vision which often came into her grey eyes, and at length she exclaimed, with a sort of impatience,