“Oh, Mother!” sighed Hester. “Don’t be foolish. These people don’t really care a thing for us. They’d only laugh. Their houses are not even furnished like ours——”
“I should say not!” cried Mrs. Grimes. “We have some of the most expensive furnichoor you could buy at Stresch & Potter’s——”
“Yes. At a department store. Nice people do not furnish their homes in that way. The varnish smells too new on our chairs and tables. We are too new. We never should have come to live on the Hill when father made money.”
“How ye talk!” exclaimed the astonished Mrs. Grimes. “Where would ye have us live—at the Four Corners still?”
“Perhaps we wouldn’t be so much like fish out of water there,” grumbled Hester.
“I’m no fish, I’d have ye understand!” exclaimed Mrs. Grimes. “And Mrs. Belding axed me to join a club—the New Century ‘tis called. ’Tis all women and our husbands haven’t a livin’ thing to say in it. I’m goin’ to join.”
“The New Century!” exclaimed Hester, indeed surprised.
“Yes. I’d be glad to be in something that Henry couldn’t poke his finger into and boss,” sighed the much harassed lady.
“But it’s never the New Century?” cried Hester.
“Why not?”