“Dear little Miss Burton,” said Ruth, giving her a swift hug, “we can’t be sorry that you had to earn your living if we try, for if you hadn’t we never should have known you.”

“Who can tell?” said Charlotte with mock solemnity.  “Perhaps she might have come into our lives in some other way.  Perhaps even now some one is drawing near to us who may be destined to play an important part in our lives or hers.”  Charlotte’s voice grew deeper as she spoke, and her eyes had a faraway look.

“Oh, Charlotte, you goose.  You make me feel positively creepy,” cried Betty.

“You don’t see any one over my shoulder, I hope,” said Dorothy with an involuntary backward glance.

“Now, Miss Burton,” said Charlotte with a laugh, “I leave it to you if that isn’t sufficient proof that I ought to be an actress.”

“I’m afraid the modern manager would require still more proof than that, Charlotte,” answered Miss Burton, much amused.  “But you certainly did that well.”

“Let’s all tell what we think we could do if we had to,” proposed Betty.  “What should you do, Ruth?”

“I suppose that after I’ve studied the violin a few years more I could give lessons,” said Ruth thoughtfully.  “But somehow I don’t seem to look forward to it with any wild joy.  Whenever I plan ahead, I always think of myself as in a home, making things look pretty, and having lots of dinner-parties.  I believe I should like to be a model hostess,” she added honestly.

“Oh, Ruth, just a society woman?” asked Charlotte with scorn in her voice.

“Ruth’s idea means more than that, Charlotte, if you think of it in its broadest sense,” interposed Miss Burton.  “To be a perfect hostess implies capacity for managing one’s household, a wide culture, forgetfulness of self and a ready appreciation of the needs of others, sincerity, charm, interest in one’s fellow beings, and so many other good qualities that I can’t stop to mention them.  It’s really a beautiful ideal, and Ruth is fortunate in living with a woman who is one of the few perfect hostesses I know.”

“I don’t think I quite realized before how much it meant,” said Ruth.  “But it must have been watching Aunt Mary that made me think of it, for I used to have quite different ideas.  It just occurs to me,” she added with an infections laugh, “that the last time I remember saying anything about it I told father that when I grew up I should keep a candy-shop.”

“And eat all you wanted, of course,” added Charlotte as they all laughed.  “That was my first idea, too.”

“And what’s your present idea?” asked Betty.

“Oh, mine’s so big and impossible, and so slow in coming, that I can’t bear to talk about it,” answered Charlotte, grown suddenly shy, and then she relapsed into silence, and no amount of urging would make her speak.

“No one asks me about mine,” said Betty plaintively after a pause in the conversation, “and I’m just dying to tell.”