d apron. She put one plate upon
another in a hurry, over knives and forks and remnants, clattered a
good deal, and dropped the salt-spoons.

Rosamond colored and frowned; but talked with a most resolutely
beautiful repose.

Afterward, when it was all over, and Harry had gone, promising to come
next day and bring a stake, painted vermilion and white, with a
little gilt ball on the top of it, she sat by the ivied window in the
brown room with tears in her eyes.

"It is dreadful to live so!" she said, with real feeling. "To have
just one wretched girl to do everything!"

"Especially," said Barbara, without much mercy, "when she always
_will_ do it at dinner-time."

"It's the betwixt and between that I can't bear," said Rose. "To have
to do with people like the Penningtons and the Marchbankses, and to
see their ways; to sit at tables where there is noiseless and perfect
serving, and to know that they think it is the 'mainspring of life'
(that's just what Mrs. Van Alstyne said about it the other day); and
then to have to hitch on so ourselves, knowing just as well what ought
to be as she does,--it's too bad. It's double dealing. I'd rather not
know, or pretend any better. I do wish we _belonged_ somewhere!"

Ruth felt sorry. She always did when Rosamond was hurt with these
things. She knew it came from a very pure, nice sense of what was
beautiful, and a thoroughness of desire for it. She knew she wanted it
_every day_, and that nobody hated shams, or company contrivances,
more heartily. She took great trouble for it; so that when they were
quite alone, and Rosamond could manage, things often went better than
when guests came and divided her attention.

Ruth went over to where she sat.

"Rose, perhaps we _do_ belong just here. Somebody has got to be in the
shading-off, you know. That helps both ways."

"It's a miserable indefiniteness, though."

"No, it isn't," said Barbara, quickly. "It's a good plan, and I like
it. Ruth just hits it. I see now what they mean by 'drawing lines.'
You can't draw them anywhere but in the middle of the stripes. And
people that are _right_ in the middle have to 'toe the mark.' It's the
edge, after all. You can reach a great deal farther by being betwixt
and between. And one girl needn't _always_ be black-leaded, nor drop
all the spoons."

CHAPTER IV.

NEXT THINGS.

Rosamond's ship-coil party was a great success. It resolved itself
into Rosamond's party, although Barbara