"The Haddens had them one night, when we were going to play commerce. When we asked them up to the table, they held right back, awfully stiff, and couldn't find anything else to say than,—out quite loud, across everything,—'O no! they couldn't play commerce; they never did; father thought it was just like any gambling game!'"
"Plucky, anyhow," said Harry Goldthwaite.
"I don't think they meant to be rude," said Elinor Hadden. "I think they really felt badly; and that was why it blurted right out so. They didn't know what to say."
"Evidently," said Olivia. "And one doesn't want to be astonished in that way very often."
"I shouldn't mind having them," said Elinor, good-naturedly. "They are kind-hearted people, and they would feel hurt to be left out."
"That is just what stopped us," said Adelaide. "That is just what the neighborhood is getting to be,—full of people that you don't know what to do with."
"I don't see why we need to go out of our own set," said Olivia.
"O dear! O dear!"
It broke from Ruth involuntarily. Then she colored up, as they all turned round upon her; but she was excited, and Ruth's excitements made her forget that she was Ruth, sometimes, for a moment. It had been growing in her, from the beginning of the conversation; and now she caught her breath, and felt her eyes light up. She turned her face to Leslie Goldthwaite; but although she spoke low she spoke somehow clearly, even more than she meant, so that they all heard.
"What if the angels had said that before they came down to Bethlehem!"