"Sally, you are uncharitable," Beatrix said rebukingly; but Bobby interrupted,—
"That's more than you can say of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons. She is on half the charity committees in town."
"How did she get there?" Thayer asked, with unfeigned curiosity.
"By toiling upward, day and night. That's where she scores ahead of the great men. According to the poet, they only belonged to the night shift. Mrs. Lloyd Avalons sleeps with the Blue Book under her pillow and dreams social combinations."
"She probably has a chess board always at her elbow," Sally suggested. "I can fancy the game, the white queen and her pawn against the whole black force, each man neatly tagged with his name and social status."
"She is marching straight into the king-row, though," Bobby added.
Beatrix called them to order.
"Does it strike you that this is perilously near to being gossip?" she inquired.
But Sally had the last word.
"It's not gossip to talk over the possibilities of the lower classes," she remarked imperturbably. "It is social science."