e
theirs hurt; and she did not like subserviency, or courting favor. So
this morning she was partly disturbed and partly puzzled by what had
happened.

Adelaide Marchbanks had overtaken her on the hill, on her way "down
street" to do some errand, and had walked on with her very affably.
At parting she had said to her, in an off-hand, by-the-way fashion,--

"Ruth, why won't you come over to-night, and take tea? I should like
you to hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing, and she would like your playing.
There won't be any company; but we're having pretty good times now
among ourselves."

Ruth knew what the "no company" meant; just that there was no regular
inviting, and so no slight in asking her alone, out of her family; but
she knew the Marchbanks parlors were always full of an evening, and
that the usual set would be pretty sure to get together, and that the
end of it all would be an impromptu German, for which she should
play, and that the Marchbanks's man would be sent home with her at
eleven o'clock.

She only thanked Adelaide, and said she "didn't know,--perhaps; but
she hardly thought she could to-night; they had better not expect
her," and got away without promising. She was thinking it over now.

She did not want to be stiff and disobliging; and she would like to
hear Mrs. Van Alstyne sing. If it were only for herself, she would
very likely think it a reasonable "quid pro quo," and modestly
acknowledge that she had no claim to absolutely gratuitous compliment.
She would remember higher reason, also, than the _quid pro quo_; she
would try to be glad in this little special "gift of ministering"; but
it puzzled her about the others. How would they feel about it? Would
they like it, her being asked so? Would they think she ought to go?
And what if she were to get into this way of being asked alone?--she
the very youngest; not "in society" yet even as much as Rose and
Barbara; though Barbara said _they_ "never 'came' out,--they just
leaked out."

That was it; that would not do; she must not leak out, away from them,
with her little waltz ripples; if there were any small help or power
of hers that could be counted in to make them all more valued, she
would not take it from the family fund and let it be counted alone to
her sole credit. It must go with theirs. It was little enough that she
could repay into the household that had given itself to her like a
born home.

She thought she would not even ask Mrs. Holabird anyt