“Tell me about Charlotte,” said Ruth eagerly.  “Is she as much like her picture as you are?”

“Charlotte is a dear, and I know you’ll like her, though some of the girls call her queer and odd and never do get really acquainted with her.  She’s tall and thin and doesn’t look very strong, and I’m afraid you won’t think her a bit pretty.  I’m so fond of her, though, that she always looks pretty to me,” ended Betty loyally, trying to do full justice to her friend and yet be honest.

“She sounds interesting,” murmured Ruth, rubbing the sleepy kitten under its chin and beginning to feel less homesick.

“Interesting!  I should say so!” replied Betty energetically.  “Why, she’s the cleverest girl I know; there isn’t anything she can’t do; and she writes the most beautiful stories.  I don’t see how, for it’s more than I can do to write the essays we have in school.”

“I don’t mind so much writing essays, but I do hate arithmetic and algebra, and I never can get them through my head.  Papa says I must go to school here, but I’m afraid I shan’t be far enough along to go in the class with you,” said Ruth soberly.

“Oh, that will be too bad.  But if you can’t, you can probably go in with Dorothy, for she’s a class behind Charlotte and me.  Dolly’s great fun,” continued Betty; “she has long braids of really golden hair, and blue eyes and the prettiest color in her cheeks.  She’s full of fun and always ready for a good time.  Her father has a great deal of money, I suppose, for she has an allowance and lots of pretty clothes, and doesn’t have to economize the way Charlotte and I do.”

“I have an allowance, but it isn’t a very big one and I never know where it goes to,” confessed Ruth.  “Papa wants me to keep a cash account this winter, and send it over to him every month. but I know I shall make awful work of it.”

“I tried it once when grandma gave me five dollars to spend just as I liked,” said Betty with a laugh.  “I got along pretty well considering it was the first time, but when I came to balance it I was forty-three cents short and so I wrote at the end, ’Gone, I know not where, forty-three cents.’  I showed it to father, and he has never got over it; he said it was the most poetical entry he had ever seen in a cash account.”

Just then there was a knock at the door, and Betty opened it to find Ellen standing there, with her face wreathed in smiles and a tray in her hands.

“Mr. Arthur thought you might be hungry, Miss,” she said to Ruth, “and so I brought you up a cup of chocolate and a bit of bread and butter to make you last till dinner time.  I thought perhaps Miss Betty might like some, too,” she added with a sly smile.

“Did you ever know the time when I wasn’t ready for a cup of your chocolate, Ellen?” replied Betty enthusiastically.  “She makes the best chocolate you ever tasted, Ruth.”

“Oh, now you’re flatterin’ me, Miss Betty, dear,” said Ellen, backing out of the door in pretended confusion.