ork more slowly
now; if you want to get any thinking in, you've got to take time to
it."

It was growing dark; Ludlow proposed to see them all home one after
another. Mrs. Westley said no, indeed; the Broadway car, at the end of
the second block, would leave her within three minutes of her door.

"And nothing could happen in three minutes," said Ludlow. "That stands
to reason."

"And _my_ one luxury is going home alone," said Charmian. "Mamma
doesn't allow it, except to and from the Synthesis. Then I'm an art
student and perfectly safe. If I were a young lady my life wouldn't be
worth anything."

"Yes," Ludlow assented, "the great thing is to have some sort of
business to be where you are."

"I know a girl who's in some of the charities, and she goes about at
all hours of the night, and nobody speaks to her," said Charmian.

"Well, then," said Ludlow, "I don't see that there's anything for me to
do, unless we all go together with Mrs. Wesley to get her Broadway car,
and then keep on to the Elevated with you, Miss Maybough. Miss Saunders
may be frightened enough then to let me walk to her door with her. A
man likes to be of some little use in the world."

They had some mild fun about the weakness of Cornelia in needing an
escort. She found it best to own that she did not quite know her way
home, and was afraid to ask if she got puzzled.

Ludlow put out his spirit-lamp, which had been burning blue all the
time, and embittering the tea in the kettle over it, and then they
carried out their plan. Cornelia went before with Mrs. Westley, who
asked her to come to her on her day, whenever she could leave her work
for such a reckless dissipation. At the foot of the Elevated station
stairs, where Charmian inflexibly required that they should part with
her, in the interest of the personal liberty which she prized above
personal safety, she embraced Cornelia formally, and then added an
embrace of a more specific character, and whispered to her ear, "You're
glorious!" and fled up the station stairs.

Cornelia understood that she was glorious because Mr. Ludlow was
walking home with her, and that Charmian was giving the fact a
significance out of all reason. They talked rather soberly, as two
people do when a gayer third has left them, and they had little
silences. They spoke of Charmian, and Cornelia praised her beauty and
her heart, and said how everybody liked her at the Synthesis.

"Do they laugh at her a little, too