After the smaller girls had disappeared stairward, Neale and Luke unfolded one of the card-tables and began a game of chess which shut them entirely out of the general conversation for the remainder of the evening.
The girls and Mrs. MacCall chatted companionably. They had much to tell each other, for, after all, the Corner House girls and Cecile Shepard had spent but one adventurous night together and they needed to learn the particulars of each other's lives before they really could feel "at home with one another," as Agnes expressed it.
Cecile and her brother could scarcely remember their parents; and the maiden aunt they lived with—a half sister of their father's—was the only relative they knew anything about.
"Oh, no," Cecile said, "we can expect no step-up in this world by the aid of any interested relative. There is no wealthy and influential uncle or aunt to give us a helping hand. We're lucky to get an education. Aunt Lorena makes that possible with her aid. And she does what she can, I know full well, only by much self-sacrifice."
Then the cheerful girl began to laugh reminiscently. "That is," she pursued, "I can look forward to the help of no fairy godmother or godfather. But Luke is in better odor with Neighbor than I am."
"'Neighbor'!" repeated Ruth. "Who is he? Or is it a what?"
"Or a game?" laughed Agnes. "'Neighbor'!"
"He is really great fun," said Cecile, still laughing. "So I suppose he might be called a game. He really is a 'neighbor,' however. He is a man named Henry Harrison Northrup, who lives right beside Aunt Lorena's little cottage in Grantham.
"You see, Luke and I used always to work around Aunt Lorena's yard, and have a garden, and chickens, and what-not when we were younger. Everybody has big yards in that part of Grantham. And Mr. Northrup, on one side, was always quarreling with auntie. He is a misogynist—"
"A mis-what-inest?" gasped Mrs. MacCall, hearing a new word.