"Mary, I beg of you, do not misunderstand me. I have no wish to dispose of them. Kenneth may not fall in love with either of them, though I don't see how he can help it" (this under his breath), "and neither of them may care in the least for him, but it would gladden my heart if the thing could be. He is an admirable fellow in every way, and during the past month he has gone into business with his father. Did you know that?

There is no doubt that he could make a comfortable home for them all.

Even if nothing comes of it I want him to know them-he'll be a better man all his life for knowing them-and I want them to have a little diversion, a little outside interest to take them out of the rut. I'll leave it all to you, Mary," he ended, with a comfortable feeling of security.

"I suppose, you know," she said as she was leaving, "that both the girls have had several offers of marriage."

"No, I didn't know."

"Mr. Dale mentioned it when he was discussing the question of my chaperoning them this winter. He said he wanted me to understand that the girls were in some ways much older than their years and that having been, through their constant companionship with him, thrown much into the society of men, it was natural they should have had that experience.

He also said that neither girl had the slightest desire to marry for the present or had ever shown any preference for one man above another. I fancied from what he said that their manner toward men was frank, rather a sort of 'camaraderie' than the silly sentimental att.i.tude some girls affect."

"You are perfectly right, Mary, they have a most engaging frankness of manner."

"May I ask you one thing, Philip?"

"Certainly," suddenly apprehensive of the question coming.

"How do you know they are beating their arms off over batches of dough"-the phrase seemed to have stuck in her mind-"I mean how did you realize it? Did they tell you?"

"Not they;" secretly relieved, "I hear it from Bridget. She worries her faithful old heart out about them and vows me to secrecy when she confides in me, for she says they would never forgive her if they knew she took it so hard."

"Good old Bridget," he said to himself, for his sister had vanished without another word, "how my little girls would scold her!"

Good old Bridget indeed, who told much, but was far too loyal to tell all she knew!

CHAPTER XIII

"Hester, 'we have arrived,' as they say in France. This has been a momentous month. We've sent out our cards and bought our first groceries at wholesale." Julie leaned her elbows on the kitchen table and gazed with a rapt meditative air at their first barrel of sugar.

Bridget stood in the doorway openly admiring. "It's like old times, Miss Julie dear, to be seein' things come in quant.i.ties agen." She had secretly harbored a grudge against the miserable little paper bags.

Peter Snooks sniffed at the unfamiliar barrel and then sat down beside it with a comical air of importance, but Hester did not leave him long undisturbed, for in wild exuberance of spirits she executed a war-dance in which he joined, at the end of which she mounted the barrel and with arms extended made a speech.

"Ladies and gentlemen (the gentlemen's _you_, Snooks);

"This is the proudest moment of my life!"

Having delivered herself of this burst of eloquence she paused a moment dramatically, then plunged into such a torrent of nonsense that Bridget buried her head in her ap.r.o.n to stifle her laughter, Peter Snooks barked frantically in a fit of delight and Julie pulled the young orator down ignominiously.

"Come into the other room," she said. "Daddy is asleep and I don't want you to wake him."

Instantly subdued, Hester tip-toed down the hall, following her sister.

"Are we going to discuss affairs of state?" she whispered.

"No, but we must come to some decision about Mrs. Lennox's invitation for Thursday night. I think we ought to go."

"Well, I don't. I object to being patronized."

"Oh! my dear, don't look at it like that; it is not kind of you. You regard Mrs. Lennox as a friend, do you not?"

"A business friend, yes; the kindest and best we have, but that is not knowing her socially."

"No, dear, but she wants to know us socially or she would not have invited us to her house. Don't you see that is what it means, Hester? It is not patronizing us, but placing us on an equal footing-"

"Where we belong," interrupted Hester, "though I don't think we need feel overwhelmed by Radnor's recognition of the fact." She spoke bitterly in a tone that cut her sister.

"Hester dear, it does hurt to be utterly ignored by the people who used to know us when we were children, but there are enough outside of Radnor who have stood by us loyally and we will make headway here eventually when people get a little more used to us."

"Do you suppose I care a snap of my finger about these Radnor girls,"

said Hester savagely. "They're a narrow sn.o.bbish lot and I'm glad I've escaped knowing them! Just yesterday, as I was delivering that great box of sandwiches at Mrs. Crane's I met Jessie Davis on the steps-she'd been calling there. Don't you remember how we always played together when we were little tots at school? Well, of course I knew her immediately-she hasn't changed a bit, and she knew me, but it was surprising how absorbed she suddenly became in looking for her carriage which was standing right under her nose! Think how disgraced she would have been before her footman if I-nothing better than a parcel-delivery girl-had spoken to her! She needn't have been afraid," scornfully, giving full vent to her smothered wrath, "I wouldn't have spoken to her to have saved her life!"

"She is not worth getting angry about, dear. You ought to pity her for not knowing any better."

"She knows better, well enough," said the irate Hester, who rather liked to nurse her wrath. "She's a nasty little sn.o.b!"

"Well, she is," agreed Julie, "but I can't help pitying her for all she has missed in not knowing you."

Hester smiled. "It is wicked of me to spit out at you, Julie dear. You did not make sn.o.bs and you have to encounter them just as much as I do.

I dare say if we go to Mrs. Lennox's we shall run up against some, but a party does sound pleasant, doesn't it?"

"I think, dear," said Julie with that quiet little matronly air she unconsciously a.s.sumed when she was trying to win over her sister, "I think that even though parties are not at all in our line these days, we should go. It is not a party, really, only an informal little musicale.

It will freshen us up tremendously to get into a different atmosphere and it will please Mrs. Lennox, who has gone out of her way to be kind."

She looked at her sister entreatingly.

"Julie, you are a saint! Sometimes you talk just like Daddy!"

Julie's eyes moistened. "I am not a saint," she protested. "Think what Miss Ware will say when she hears of it?"

Hester's eyes gleamed. "That settles it-I am going, and if you want to know my honest opinion, I love Mrs. Lennox for asking us."

There were many orders that week and their working capacity was taxed to its utmost to meet the demand. Had it not been for their systematic arrangement of everything it would have been impossible to accomplish so much. They had learned that the early hours of the morning are the best and got to work by six, continuing on through the day as long as there was anything to do. They had laid down stringent rules for work hours and strenuously endeavored to live by them.

By Thursday they were absorbed in the largest order they had yet received, embracing as it did croquettes, patties and other elaborate things which in an unguarded moment they had agreed to send hot to some club-rooms in the neighborhood. Hester thought they could do this by packing the things in a big steamer they had recently purchased. The steamer was a large tin affair built in sections of trays and would pack to great advantage, besides holding a considerable amount of boiling water at the bottom whereby the things could be kept hot. They had engaged an expressman to deliver this promptly at quarter past eight and it was with anxious hearts and nervous fingers they made the final preparations for packing. The cooking of all these elaborate things had been in itself no light achievement, but even that was as nothing to their fear lest the steamer should not reach its destination safely.

They had been at work since five that morning and wrapped and boxed and packed securely was the last thing when the clock struck eight that evening. Five minutes past eight and no expressman! Quarter after, and two excited girls stared at each other across the steamer! Then Hester fled to the bas.e.m.e.nt. The janitor was out but she pounced upon the engineer and got him upstairs before he realized what it was all about.

"You're to go on an errand," was all she had vouchsafed him, leaving Julie to explain the rest.

The man when he reached their kitchen eyed the big steamer curiously and said he could carry it. Whereupon Julie wanted to fall upon his neck with joy, but showed him the address tied to the cover instead.

"Be'gorra miss," he said in evident embarra.s.sment, "I ain't been in the city a week. Not the name of a street am I after knowin' entirely."

Here was a dilemma.

"I'll go with him," said Bridget.

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said Julie, "you have been half dead with rheumatism for two days and it is pouring in torrents. We'll go, Hester and I-we can get there in fifteen minutes. Hustle, Hester!"