"I know you won't mind my coming straight to the point, my dear," she said. "I came to ask you about George Weston's new wife. Do you think we had better call on her?"
The question had come to me before, but I confess I had selfishly thought of it only as a personal matter.
"Mr. Weston's people were hardly of our sort, you know," she continued in her gentle voice, "though of course after your father took him into his office as a student we all felt like receiving him. I never knew him until after that."
"I have seen a good deal of him," I said, wondering if my voice sounded queer; "you know he helped settle the estate."
"It did seem providential," Mrs. Andrews went on, "that his mother did not live, for of course we could hardly have known her. She was a Hardy, you know, from Canton. But I have always found Mr. Weston a very presentable young man, especially for one of his class. He is really very intelligent."
"As we have received him," I said, "I don't see how we can refuse to receive his wife."
"That's the way I thought you would feel about it," old lady Andrews answered; "but I wished to be sure. As he has been received entirely on account of his connection with your family, I told Aunt Naomi that it ought to be for you to say whether the favor should be extended to his wife. I am informed that she is very pretty, but she is not, I believe, exactly one of our sort."
"She is exceedingly pretty," I assured her. "I have seen her. She is not—Well, I am afraid that she is rather Western, but I shall call."
"Then that settles it. Of course we shall do whatever you decide. I suppose he will bring her to our church. I say 'our,' Ruth, because you really belong to it. You are just a lamb that has found a place with a picket off, and got outside the fold. We shall have you back some time."
"I am afraid," I said laughing, "that I should only disgrace you and injure the fold by pulling a fresh picket off somewhere to get out again."