era had seized on hearing
the click of the gate announcing Mrs. Ramsey's return, while Hermione
busied herself in hiding under the cushion of her chair two borrowed
books of fairy tales which their mother had denounced and forbidden and
banned and would have burned with a zeal like to that which animated
the burners of the witches.

"When I was your age I never cared for reading. I knew most books were
lies from beginning to end. You couldn't hire me to read about goblins
and witches," she often declared.

"What a dull, tiresome girl mamma must have been," said Vera in a low
aside.

"But she didn't have to play exercises on the piano!" returned Hermione.

"No, nor try to _parlez vous_ with a gibbering foreigner."

"I don't see any use for foreign babbling. As the nurse in the French
tale says to the little girl who is studying English, 'Since the _bon
dieu_ wrote the Bible in French, it shows that he thought it good
enough for anybody,'" said Hermione, laughing, and Vera continued,

"Grandpa was too poor to pay for extras, I guess."

"I almost wish we could say the same of Pa Ramsey, only I'd hate to be
poor--I don't see how poor people can stand it!"

"Oh, they are used to it. They don't mind it," returned Vera with a
yawn.

"Tissue-paper hats!" they cried when their fond parent, sinking on a
lounge, had recovered sufficient breath to relate her adventure;
"Tissue-paper hats!"

Hermione's thoughts flew to her own room where, reposing in a box, was
her best hat, a huge affair of fine white straw, with ribbons and
flowers galore, whose glories made Alene's headgear appear the more
offensive. She was wishing she had been along with Alene, wearing her
own hat, of course, until her mother went on to say:

"That wasn't the worst of it! What can Frederick Dawson mean to allow
Alene to associate with the town children!"

"Town children, mamma! Do you mean from the poorhouse?"

"No, Miss Density, mamma means that Lee girl and Ivy Bonner and--"

"Oh, them! They go to our room! That Bonner girl is awfully bright
but so sarcastic, and Laura Lee is all right!"

Mrs. Ramsey shook her head.

"This comes of the public schools, where the president's child is made
to rub shoulders with the miner's!"

"And the miner's child often beats him in his lessons and the rest of
the scholars are apt to remark and remember it," said Hermione. "Only
for that, the rich boys could pose as being extra smart!"

"I shoul