id, have the courage to
go back and set right what we did, as bravely as you have done."

The girl stood dumb.... Strange, indeed, that the first word of
understanding sympathy she had had since her home-coming--barring only
Hen Cooney--should have come from this worse than stranger, whom at a
distance she had long secretly envied and disliked. One touch of
generous kindness, and the hostility of years seemed to fall away....

She raised her eyes, trying with indifferent success to smile. But
perhaps her look showed something of what she felt: for Mrs. Page
immediately took the girl's face between her hands and kissed her
lightly on the cheek.

"May I?... I mean by it that I hope you'll let me know you better, when
I'm home again.... Good-bye."

Cally caught the gloved hand upon her cheek, and said, with an
impulsiveness far from her habit:

"I think you're the sweetest person I ever saw...."

* * * * *

And two days later, she said to her mother, though in a distinctly
frivolous tone:

"What would you think of me as a Settlement worker, mamma?"

"Settlement worker?... Well, we'll see," said Mrs. Heth, absently. "It
remains to be seen how far the best people are going in for it...."

Cally laughed. She was beautifully dressed, and felt perfectly poised.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon, and she and her mother were in the
new vindication limousine, en route to the old Dabney House.

"What difference does that make?"

"All the difference.... Now, Cally, don't pick up any of poor
Henrietta's equality notions, just because you feel a little blue at
present. This is going to come out all right. You may trust me."

"I do," said Cally, sincerely.

After a silence she added with a laugh: "Who are the best people,
mamma?"

"I am, for one," said mamma; and unconsciously her grasp lightened on
the little ornamental bag where snuggled her Settlement check for Ten
Thousand Dollars, securely bagged at last.

"Don't let any poor nobodies pull you down to their level with their
talk about merit," said mamma. "What's merit in society?"

XXIV

How the Best People came to the Old Hotel again; how Cally
is Ornamental, maybe, but hardly a Useful Person; how she
encounters Three Surprises from Three Various Men, all
disagreeable but the Last.

To the Dabney House, it was like old times come back. Not in forty years
had the ancient hostelry so resound