he hill.

"Was it very shocking?" asked Ruth, troubled in her mind. "I could
not help it; but I was frightened to death the next minute."

"About as frightened as the man is who stands to his gun in the
front," said Dakie Thayne. "You never flinched."

"They would have thought it was from what I had said," Ruth answered.
"And _that_ was another thing from the _saying_."

"_You_ had something to say, Leslie. It was just on the corner of your
lip. I saw it."

"Yes; but Ruth said it all in one flash. It would have spoiled it if I
had spoken then."

"I'm always sorry for people who don't know how," said Ruth. "I'm sure
I don't know how myself so often."

"That is just it," said Leslie. "Why shouldn't these girls come up?
And how will they ever, unless somebody overlooks? They would find out
these mistakes in a little while, just as they find out fashions:
picking up the right things from people who do know how. It is a kind
of leaven, like greater good. And how can we stand anywhere in the
lump, and say it shall not spread to the next particle?"

"They think it was pushing of them, to come here to live at all," said
Ruth.

"Well, we're all pushing, if we're good for anything," said Leslie.
"Why mayn't they push, if they don't crowd out anybody else? It seems
to me that the wrong sort of pushing is pushing down."

"Only there would be no end to it," said Dakie Thayne, "would there?
There are coarse, vulgar people always, who are wanting to get in just
for the sake of being in. What are the nice ones to do?"

"Just _be_ nice, I think," said Leslie. "Nicer with those people than
with anybody else even. If there weren't any difficulty made about
it,--if there weren't any keeping out,--they would tire of the
niceness probably sooner than anything. I don't suppose it is the
fence that keeps out weeds."

"You are just like Mrs. Ingleside," said Ruth, walking closer to
Leslie as she spoke.

"And Mrs. Ingleside is like Miss Craydocke: and--I didn't suppose I
should ever find many more of them, but they're counting up," said
Dakie Thayne. "There's a pretty good piece of the world salted, after
all."

"If there really is any best society," pursued Leslie, "it seems to me
it ought to be, not for keeping people out, but for getting everybody
in as fast as it can, like the kingdom of heaven."

"Ah, but that _is_ kingdom come," said Dakie Thayne.

It seemed as if the question of "things next" was to arise
continually