“I am sure you would,” answered Mrs. Hamilton with a grateful kiss.  “And now what are your plans for this afternoon?” she added brightly.

“Oh, the girls are coming in, and I am going to try to get really acquainted with them.  It’s so interesting to have three new friends at the same time.”

“They are very nice girls, and each so different from the other that I sometimes wonder why they are such close friends.”

“I am just a little bit afraid of Charlotte still,” confessed Ruth.  “She seems to know so much, and she makes such funny, sharp speeches.  But I feel as though I’d known Betty for years.”

“Poor Charlotte has had a different sort of life from the others,” said Mrs. Hamilton with a sigh, “and it has helped to bring out the sharp comers in her nature.  Her mother is an invalid, and Charlotte has had a great deal of care and responsibility.”

“Betty thinks everything that Charlotte does is just right,” said Ruth.

“Betty is one of the most loyal friends imaginable.  She puts her dearest friends on pedestals, and bestows her time and her services freely upon them.  I’ve known her ever since she was a baby, and she has always been the same sunshiny little soul.”

“She just suits me because she always has a kitten or two trailing after her,” said Ruth. with a laugh.  “Dorothy’s a dear, too, and in fact I’m sure we are all going to be such good chums that I shan’t know which one I like best.”

“That’s the very nicest way,” answered Mrs. Hamilton.  “Bless me, is it lunch time?” she added as Katie appeared in the doorway.  “You are an entertaining hostess, my dear, and you have made me forget how fast time flies.”

Ruth was glad that the cool afternoon gave an excuse for a fire, for she loved the crackle and warmth, and the soft color that the fire-glow threw over everything.  As she looked around her pretty room with a satisfied air, there was a patter of feet on the stairs, a suppressed giggle and then a knock.

“Come in, come in,” cried Ruth, throwing the door wide open.  “I was beginning to be afraid you weren’t coming.”

“It’s my fault, as usual,” said Charlotte in a resigned tone.  “The girls called for me, and just as we were going to start one of the twins fell into a kettle of grape-juice that had been left to cool in the summer-kitchen.”

“Oh!  Was he badly burned?” cried Ruth.

“No, it was cold, but he’ll be purple for the next week, I suppose.  Of course I had to stop and wring him out and make him as clean as I could.  He’s a sight, though.”

The contrast between Charlotte’s tragic tone and the picture she gave of her small brother was too much for Ruth’s gravity, and she laughed till the tears came.

“How old are they, and do they do those things often?” she gasped at last.

“They’re six, and they do,” said Charlotte briefly.  “If ever a day passes that one of those boys doesn’t do something to harrow our feelings I know that it is a sure sign that something more awful than usual is going to happen the next day.”