your mother, for instance, it might be hard for you to
answer him. You'd be apt to think that he was coming into your own
private church."

"I see that," the girl answered; "but," returning to the beginning of
the conversation, "I didn't want to talk secrets with Miss Maria; I just
wanted to be nice."

"Just in the same way that people have thoughts of their very own that
you mustn't intrude on, so there are reserves in their habits that you
mustn't intrude on. Every one has a right to freedom from intrusion. I
insist on it for myself; my daughter never enters my bedroom without
knocking. I pay her the same respect; I always tap at her door and wait
for her answer before I enter."

"Would you be mad if she went into your room without knocking?"

"I should be sorry that she was so inconsiderate of my feelings. She
might, perhaps, interrupt me at my toilet. I should not like that."

"Is that what I did to Miss Maria?"

"Yes, dear, it was. You don't know Miss Maria well, and yet you opened
the door of her private room and went in without being invited."

"I'm sorry," she said briefly.

"I'm sure you are, now you understand why it wasn't kind."

"I wish she knew I meant to be nice."

"Would you like to have me tell her? I think she'll understand there are
some things you haven't learned for you haven't a mother to teach you."

"Uncle Dan says maybe I'll have to live with the old ladies all the
time, so they might as well know I wasn't trying to be mean," she
whispered resignedly.

"I'll tell Miss Maria, then, and perhaps you and she will be better
friends from now on because she'll know you want to please her. And now,
I came over to tell you that the U.S.C. is going into New York to-day to
see something of the Botanical Garden and the Arboretum. I'm going with
them and they'd be glad to have you go, too."

"They won't be very glad, but I'd like to go," responded the girl, her
face lighted with the nearest approach to affection Mrs. Smith ever had
seen upon it.

CHAPTER XV

FUR AND FOSSILS

When the Club gathered at the station to go into town Mary was arrayed
in a light blue satin dress as unsuitable for her age as it was for the
time of day and the way of traveling. The other girls were dressed in
blue or tan linen suits, neat and plain. Secretly Mary thought their
frocks were not to be named in the same breath with hers, but once when
she had said something about the simplicity of her dress t