“Perhaps there are,” Mrs. Salisbury admitted dubiously.  She felt, with a sense of triumph, that she had given Justine a pretty strong hint against “uppishness.”  But Justine was innocently impervious to hints.  As a matter of fact, she was not an exceptionally bright girl; literal, simple, and from very plain stock, she was merely well trained in her chosen profession.  Sometimes she told her mistress of her fellow-graduates, taking it for granted that Mrs. Salisbury entirely approved of all the ways of the American School of Domestic Science.

“There’s Mabel Frost,” said Justine one day.  “She would have graduated when I did, but she took the fourth year’s work.  She really is of a very fine family; her father is a doctor.  And she has a position with a doctor’s family now, right near here, in New Troy.  There are just two in family, and both are doctors, and away all day.  So Mabel has a splendid chance to keep up her music.”

“Music?” Mrs. Salisbury asked sharply.

“Piano.  She’s had lessons all her life.  She plays very well, too.”

“Yes; and some day the doctor or his wife will come in and find her at the piano, and your friend will lose her fine position,” Mrs. Salisbury suggested.

“Oh, Mabel never would have touched the piano without their permission,” Justine said quickly, with a little resentful flush.

“You mean that they are perfectly willing to have her use it?” Mrs. Salisbury asked.

“Oh, quite!”

“Have they adopted her?”

“Oh, no!  No; Mabel is twenty-four or five.”

“What’s the doctor’s name?”

“Mitchell.  Dr. Quentin Mitchell.  He’s a member of the Burning Woods Club.”

“A member of the club!  And he allows—­” Mrs. Salisbury did not finish her thought.  “I don’t want to say anything against your friend,” she began again presently, “but for a girl in her position to waste her time studying music seems rather absurd to me.  I thought the very idea of the college was to content girls with household positions.”

“Well, she is going to be married next spring,” Justine said, “and her husband is quite musical.  He plays a church organ.  I am going to dinner with them on Thursday, and then to the Gadski concert.  They’re both quite music mad.”

“Well, I hope he can afford to buy tickets for Gadski, but marriage is a pretty expensive business,” Mrs. Salisbury said pleasantly, “What is he, a chauffeur—­a salesman?” To do her justice, she knew the question would not offend, for Justine, like any girl from a small town, was not fastidious as to the position of her friends; was very fond of the policeman on the corner and his pretty wife, and liked a chat with Mrs. Sargent’s chauffeur when occasion arose.

But the girl’s answer, in this case, was a masterly thrust.

“No; he’s something in a bank, Mrs. Salisbury.  He’s paying teller in that little bank at Burton Corners, beyond Burning Woods.  But, of course, he hopes for promotion; they all do.  I believe he is trying to get into the River Falls Mutual Savings, but I’m not sure.”