"I'm no more honest than you are."
"Well, perhaps our fundamentals are about the same, but I have to pretend to be a lot of things I am not, to work out my principles and I am sure you couldn't pretend to be anything but just dear, sweet Mary Louise Dexter if your life, or even your dear Danny's life, depended on it. Could you paint your face and be a vulgar minx as I am being just now?"
"I—I—don't know."
"I bet you could," put in Elizabeth. "You have never yet failed to do what it was up to you to do and I believe you could even do that."
Mary Louise laughed. "I could but try if my doing it would help anybody. Good luck to you, Josie dear!"
And the next moment Josie was gone on her great adventure.
Atlanta had on its smiling, spring face when Josie arrived. The air was soft and balmy and everything smelt of violets. They were growing everywhere, on the poor streets as well as the more pretentious ones. A house was lowly indeed that did not boast a bit of yard with borders of violets by fence and walk. Old colored women sat on the corners with huge bunches of violets for sale. Pretty girls walked on the streets with corsage bouquets of the fragrant flowers.
"Poor little Polly and Peter! No wonder they are homesick for Atlanta," was Josie's first thought.
She found lodgings in a quaint little old hotel called the Elberta Inn. Everything in Atlanta seemed to Josie to have something to do with peaches—Peachtree Street, West Peachtree Street, Peachtree Terrace, Peachtree Gardens. Then hotels and inns bore the name where they could and others named themselves after famous brands of peaches, such as Elberta.
"What's in a name?" sighed Josie when, at her very first dinner in her new quarters, dried apple pies were shamelessly served.