“But Billy, if a girl has a gift, yes.  But you can’t put a girl in a foundry or a grocery.”

“Not in a foundry.  But you could in a grocery.  And she said she had talked to Anna and Jo since they were kids, just as she did to the boys, about their work.”

“Wouldn’t Auntie think she was crazy!” Susan smiled.  After a while she said more mildly: 

“I don’t believe Peter Coleman is quite as bad as the others!”

“Because you have a crush on him,” suggested Billy frankly.  “I think he acted like a skunk.”

“Very well.  Think what you like!” Susan said icily.  But presently, in a more softened tone, she added, “I do feel badly about Thorny!  I oughtn’t to have left her.  It was all so quick!  And she did have a date, at least I know a crowd of people were coming to their house to dinner.  And I was so utterly taken aback to be asked out with that crowd!  The most exclusive people in the city,—­that set.”

“You give me an awful pain when you talk like that,” said Billy, bluntly.  “You give them a chance to sit on you, and they do, and then you want to run away to Chicago, because you feel so hurt.  Why don’t you stay in your own crowd?”

“Because I like nice people.  And besides, the Fox crowd isn’t one bit better than I am!” said the inconsistent Susan, hotly.  “Who were their ancestors!  Miners and servants and farmers!  I’d like to go away,” she resumed, feverishly, “and work up to be something great, and come back here and have them tumbling over themselves to be nice to me—­”

“What a pipe dream!” Billy observed.  “Let ’em alone.  And if Coleman ever offers you another invitation—­”

“He won’t!” interposed Susan.

“—­Why, you sit on him so quick it’ll make his head spin!  Get busy at something, Susan.  If you had a lot of work to do, and enough money to buy yourself pretty clothes, and to go off on nice little trips every Sunday,—­up the mountain, or down to Santa Cruz, you’d forget this bunch!”

“Get busy at what?” asked Susan, half-hopeful, half in scorn.

“Oh, anything!”

“Yes, and Thorny getting forty-five after twelve years!”

“Well, but you’ve told me yourself how Thorny wastes time, and makes mistakes, and conies in late, and goes home early—–­”

“As if that made any difference!  Nobody takes the least notice!” Susan said hotly.  But she was restored enough to laugh now, and a passing pop-corn cart made a sudden diversion.  “Let’s get some crisps, Bill!  Let’s get a lot, and take some home to the others!”