Sue looked at Ruth sharply.

"You've sort of got an idea that name gives you special dispensation, haven't you, Ruth—kind of a free passport to the upper realms? Well, forget it! It hasn't. It wouldn't get you any farther with folks that count than Cross, or Ashe, or Hemphill. It's what you bring to your name; not what it brings to you. It's like what Miss North said the other day about life. It isn't what you get out of it, but what you put into it that counts."

Ruth's lip curled. It takes more than a rebuke to make a democrat out of an aristocrat.

"Nevertheless I shall retain the privilege of choosing my associates and not having them thrust upon me."

"That's all right, Ruth, but when you get lonesome, come on back into the fold. I've an idea that Joy Cross is going to make a place for herself in the school whether you like it or not. Blue Bonnet seems to have got at her in some way lately, and she says she's really quite likable! She says Joy makes her think of the late chrysanthemums in her grandmother's garden. They never get ready to bloom until everything else is gone; but you appreciate them all the more after they've weathered the frost and come out brave and brilliant. Funny idea, isn't it? Blue Bonnet has such queer ideas. I think she's very unusual."

Ruth, still annoyed, found a place by the organ, while Sue slipped over by Joy, and putting her arm through hers carelessly, joined in the hymns with interest and fervor.

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CHAPTER XIV

SETTLEMENT WORK