o break it up, ought to take hold. Don't you think
so? Don't you think it is the duty of women of my age and class to see
to this thing before it grows any worse?' And I told her,--right up,
respectful,--Yes'm; it wum! Think of her asking me, though!"

Just as things were getting to be so different and so nice on West
Hill, it seemed so hard to leave it! Everything reminded us of that.

A beautiful plan came up for Ruth, though, at this time. What with
the family worries,--which Ruth always had a way of gathering to
herself, and hugging up, prickers in, as if so she could keep the
nettles from other people's fingers,--and her hard work at her music,
she was getting thin. We were all insisting that she must take a
vacation this summer, both from teaching and learning; when, all at
once, Miss Pennington made up her mind to go to West Point and Lake
George, and to take Penelope with her; and she came over and asked
Ruth to go too.

"If you don't mind a room alone, dear; I'm an awful coward to have
come of a martial family, and I must have Pen with me nights. I'm
nervous about cars, too; I want two of you to keep up a chatter; I
should be miserable company for one, always distracted after the
whistles."

Ruth's eyes shone; but she colored up, and her thanks had half a doubt
in them. She would tell Auntie: and they would think how it could be.

"What a nice way for you to go!" said Barbara, after Miss Pennington
left. "And how nice it will be for you to see Dakie!" At which Ruth
colored up again, and only said that "it would certainly be the nicest
possible way to go, if she were to go at all."

Barbara meant--or meant to be understood that she meant--that Miss
Pennington knew everybody, and belonged among the general officers;
Ruth had an instinct that it would only be possible for her to go by
an invitation like this from people out of her own family.

"But doesn't it seem queer she should choose me, out of us all?" she
asked. "Doesn't it seem selfish for me to be the one to go?"

"Seem selfish? Whom to?" said Barbara, bluntly. "We weren't asked."

"I wish--everybody--knew that," said Ruth.

Making this little transparent speech, Ruth blushed once more. But she
went, after all. She said we pushed her out of the nest. She went out
into the wide, wonderful world, for the very first time in her life.

This is one of her letters:--

DEAR MOTHER AND GIRLS:--It is perfectly lovely here. I wish you could
sit where I