f there was more of it in
Freeport than there used to be.

They talked of Ruth's father, of Mildred's people, of the neighborhood
both knew so well. From that it drifted to the social life of the town.
She was amused, rather sadly amused, at Mildred's air of superiority
about it; it seemed so youthful, so facile. Listening to Mildred now
pictures flashed before her: she and Edith Lawrence--girls of about
fifteen--going over to the Woodburys' and eagerly asking, "Could we take
the baby out, Mrs. Woodbury?" "Now you'll be very, very careful, girls?"
Mrs. Woodbury would say, wrapping Mildred all up in soft pink things.
"Oh, _yes_, Mrs. Woodbury," they would reply, a little shocked that she
could entertain the thought of their not being careful. And then they
would start off cooing girlish things about the cunning little darling.
This was that baby--in spite of her determination to hold aloof from
Mildred there was no banishing it; no banishing the apprehension that
grew with the girl's talk. For Mildred seemed so much a part of the very
thing for which she had this easy scorn. Something in the way she held
the lines made it seem she would not belong anywhere else. She looked so
carefully prepared for the very life for which she expressed disdain.

She tried to forget the things that were coming back to her--how Mildred
would gleefully hold up her hands to have her mittens put on when she
and Edith were about to take her out, and tried too to turn the
conversation--breaking out with something about Mrs. Herman's children.
But it became apparent that Mildred was not to be put off. Everything
Ruth would call up to hold her off she somehow forced around to an
approach for what she wanted to say.

And then it came abruptly, as if she were tired of trying to lead up to
it. "I've been wanting to see you--Ruth," she hesitated over the name,
but brought it out bravely, and it occurred to Ruth then that Mildred
had not known how to address her. "When I heard you were here," she
added, "I was determined you shouldn't get away without my seeing you."

Ruth looked at her with a little smile, moved, in spite of herself, by
the impetuousness of the girl's tone, by something real that broke
through the worldly little manner.

"I don't feel as the rest of them do." She flushed and said it
hurriedly, a little tremulously; and yet there was something direct and
honest in her eyes, as if she were going to say it whether it seemed
nice ta