“Please don’t bother. I had several for Christmas, beauties, from Mr. Barstow’s Christmas tree.”
“But you will need this before you can get at the others. You can borrow it.”
“I’ll be glad to, and I’ll send it to you properly laundered. Shall you be here long, or are you going back to Baltimore?”
“How do you know that Baltimore is my home?”
“It was on the box; ‘Mary West, Baltimore.’”
“Of course; I had forgotten. I shall be at Mrs. Everleigh’s for another week, and I do hope we shall meet again before you leave. May I come to Mrs. Austin’s to see you?”
“Indeed you may, though I am to be here but a couple of days longer; then, ‘back to the mines.’”
“O dear! I do want to know you better and to hear all about you——”
But here Mrs. Everleigh came up. “Time to go, Mabel,” she said. “Didn’t you girls want any tea? I saw you two talking away for dear life, as if you were old and tried friends.”
“Well, we are in a measure,” replied Mabel. “Ellen knows some intimate acquaintances of mine.” The two girls exchanged glances and laughed.