“Don’t be envious, Al,” answered Charlotte sweetly.  “Perhaps your chocolate will be as good as my apples.”

“There,” said Ruth with a sigh of relief, “now that can cool, and I’ll put the finishing touches on later.”

Suddenly the door-bell rang sharply.  “You’ll have to go to the door, girls,” said Betty, poking her head into the dining-room, “for there’s no one besides us in the house.”

There was a murmur of conversation at the door, and then Ruth came flying into the kitchen with shining eyes and flushed cheeks.  “There’s the dearest little old woman at the door, girls,” she said, “with soap and pins and needles to sell, and I’m so sorry for her because she says she hasn’t sold a thing today.  And she’s the cleanest-looking old dear you ever saw, and don’t you think we might ask her to stay to supper?”

Ruth stopped for lack of breath, and her face fell as she saw plainly that both Dorothy and Betty disapproved of her plan.  She started slowly toward the door, wondering how much money she had in her purse, and whether it would be enough to get the old woman her supper, when help came from an unexpected quarter.  Charlotte, who at that moment was so completely a Knight of the Round Table that she could hardly refrain from using the language of chivalry, and who saw in this instance a chance to bring chivalric ideas into practical use, said excitedly, “Why not, girls, if she’s clean?  She certainly can’t run off with the silver with six of us to watch her.”

“She’s very respectable looking,” pleaded Ruth; “her clothes are neat, and she looks as though—­as though she’d seen better days.”

“Mother said she wished we could make our club helpful to some one besides ourselves,” said Betty slowly; “perhaps this is one of the ways.”

“Of course it is,” answered Ruth, and was about to make a wild dash for the door when she remembered that Dorothy was president and ought to have the deciding voice.  “What do you say, Dolly?” she asked coaxingly.  Dorothy frowned.  “I don’t approve of it a bit,” she said, “but as you all seem to be against me I won’t say anything more about it.”  Ruth walked slowly toward the front door, feeling very undecided, but Charlotte, who had followed her, helped her to a decision by saying softly, “Go ahead and invite her, Ruth; Dolly will come round ail right.”

Seated in the kitchen the old woman didn’t look at all dangerous even to Dorothy’s suspicious eyes.  She was dressed neatly in black, and, though politely urged, refused to take off either bonnet or shawl.  Much conversation with her was impossible, for she was very deaf and mumbled so in talking that it was hard to understand her.  The girls couldn’t help liking the rosy face with its crown of snowy hair under a black veil, and they felt, too, that gentle glow of pride which comes of exceeding virtue.  The old lady’s bright eyes traveled from one to the other of them as they worked, and occasionally her whole frame trembled as though with emotion.