"Esther Bodn!"

"Yes, she asked me to fix a day this week when I could come, and I
fixed Thursday,--to-morrow."

"But, Laura, can't you postpone it? Tell her how it is,--that mamma and
papa are going away, and that Mary and Agnes are in New York, and I
shall be all alone unless you come. Can't you do that, Laura?"

"I don't want to do that, Kitty."

"Oh, you'd rather go to that little Bodn girl's than to come to me!"

"I didn't say that, and I didn't mean that, Kitty. I meant that I didn't
want to do what you asked, because it wouldn't be polite or kind."

"Well, it seems to me, Laura Brooks, that you are putting on very
ceremonious airs all at once. Didn't you postpone until another day a
visit to Amy Stanton last winter, for just such a reason as this,--that
you might go to Annie Grainger's when her mother went to Baltimore,--and
Amy never thought of its being impolite or unkind."

"But that was different, Kitty."

"Different? Show me where the difference is, please."

"Oh, Kitty, you _know_."

"But I _don't_ know."

Laura's delicate face flushed a little, but after a moment's hesitation
she said: "Esther is--is not like Amy Stanton or you; that is, she
doesn't live in the same way. The Bodns are poor,--quite poor, Kitty."

"Well, I don't see how that alters the case," still obstinately
responded Kitty.

"Now, Kitty, you _do_ see. Esther is shy and sensitive. She doesn't
visit the people that we do."

"She doesn't visit _anybody_, so far as I know."

"Yes, that is just it," Laura went on eagerly; "and so you see that when
she and her mother have made preparations for company--even one
person--it would put them to a great deal of trouble and inconvenience
to change the time, and it would be unkind and impolite to ask them to
do it."

"How do you know that they have made such unusual preparations for you?"
asked Kitty, sarcastically.

Laura flushed again as she answered: "I didn't mean unusual in one way,
but I thought that they didn't often invite company by something that
Esther said. When she asked me to fix a day, she told me that her mother
wasn't very well, and that they didn't keep a servant."

"Not keep a servant! Not a single one! Why, they must be awfully poor,
like common working-people!" exclaimed the young Beacon Street girl, in
a wondering tone.

"Esther isn't common, if she is poor," Laura instantly asserted with
decision.

"I don't understand how anybody so poor as that should