mother told her what Rosamond had
said of who were coming,--the Hobarts and Helen; the rest were not
then asked.

Olivia did not like it very well,--that reply of Leslie's. She showed
it to Jeannie Hadden; that was how we came to know of it.

"Please forgive me," the note ran, "if I accept Rosamond's invitation
for the very reason that might seem to oblige me to decline it. I see
you have two days' advantage of her, and she will no doubt lose some
of the girls by that. I really _heard_ hers first. I wish very much it
were possible to have both pleasures."

That was being terribly true and independent with West Z----. "But
Leslie Goldthwaite," Barbara said, "always was as brave as a little
bumble-bee!"

How it had come over Rosamond, though, we could not quite understand.
It was not pique, or rivalry; there was no excitement about it; it
seemed to be a pure, spirited dignity of her own, which she all at
once, quietly and of course, asserted.

Mother said something about it to her Saturday morning, when she was
beating up Italian cream, and Rosamond was cutting chicken for the
salad. The cakes and the jellies had been made the day before.

"You have done this, Rosamond, in a very right and neighborly way, but
it isn't exactly your old way. How came you not to mind?"

Rosamond did not discuss the matter; she only smiled and said, "I
think, mother, I'm growing very proud and self-sufficient, since we've
had real, _through-and-through_ ways of our own."

It was the difference between "somewhere" and "betwixt and between."

Miss Elizabeth Pennington came in while we were putting candles in the
bronze branches, and Ruth was laying an artistic fire in the wide
chimney. Ruth could make a picture with her crossed and balanced
sticks, sloping the firm-built pile backward to the two great, solid
logs behind,--a picture which it only needed the touch of flame to
finish and perfect. Then the dazzling fire-wreaths curled and clasped
through and about it all, filling the spaces with a rushing splendor,
and reaching up their vivid spires above its compact body to an
outline of complete live beauty. Ruth's fires satisfied you to look
at: and they never tumbled down.

She rose up with a little brown, crooked stick in one hand, to speak
to Miss Pennington.

"Don't mind me," said the lady. "Go on, please, 'biggin' your castle.'
That will be a pretty sight to see, when it lights up."

Ruth liked crooked sticks; they held fast