hesitated and coloured slightly. "I must acknowledge,"
she said, with some hesitation, "that I have departed from my usual
custom, and it is only fair to you to inform you that they do not move
in your set at home. Miss Dent's father was a painter by trade, but is
now a wealthy contractor. She has had every advantage, is a college
graduate, and has had her voice cultivated abroad. She will be quite
an acquisition to us. Miss Marker is just a little schoolgirl, but
well connected, I understand. Her mother was a Monroe. I knew her
father when he was just beginning the study of law. He had a very
brilliant career in prospect, apparently, but through some sad freak
of fate lost his money and was obliged to abandon it. He is bookkeeper
now for Bement & Ahlering."

[Illustration: "'WHY, I HAVE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF THEM'"]

A stony silence greeted Miss Philura's explanation, for a moment, and
then several expostulatory voices asked in chorus, "Oh, Miss Philura!
How could you consent to their coming? A common workingman's daughter!
We don't want to know her, I'm sure!"

There was a touch of hauteur in Miss Philura's manner, that any one
should question any act of hers. "As I stated before," she said,
coldly, "I had the best of reasons. Surely, if I with my conservative
ideas can endorse them, that ought to be enough. There are not two
more ladylike girls in the South than Travis Dent and Mary Lee Marker.
I hope you will find one another agreeable during the little time they
will be here."

Miss Philura, somewhat deaf, did not hear the undertone passing round
the table, as she turned her attention to the making of the salad
dressing. "A sign-painter's daughter!" said Molly Glendenning, with a
shrug of the shoulders. "Well, I for one do not care to know her.
People educated above their station in life are apt to be presuming.
It might make matters a trifle awkward next winter if she should
attempt to push her acquaintance when we go back to town."

"It will be easy enough to ignore them," answered her cousin Cora,
"and I shall do it with a vengeance. It is one thing to be nice and
friendly with shopgirls and factory hands, and quite another to take
up with the well-to-do middle class. Give them an inch and they'll
take an ell every time. First thing you know they'll turn round and
patronise you."

The subject was still under discussion when they rose from the table
and followed Molly Glendenning out into the wide hall. "T