"It was my fault," Elizabeth said, "that part of it. I wouldn't let Ruth bother you because I felt that you had worries enough. Of course if I'd dreamed for a minute that Maudie Pratt would tell a story about the value of her ring, and that twenty-five dollars was the real price of it, I should have let Ruth tell you; but a hundred dollars--why, Mother, until we tried, I wouldn't have believed it was possible for us to come anywhere near earning a hundred dollars. Would you?"
"No," said Mrs. Spooner. "That's why I say I'm proud of you. It's an achievement any three young persons of your age may well be proud of--and none of you neglected your other duties for it."
"It was lovely," sighed Elizabeth, reminiscently. "I think making money is almost more fun than spending it. Ruth can always earn with her cooking. I wish I had a special gift. What do you think I can do best, mother?"
"You do almost anything you do a little better than other people," declared Mrs. Spooner. "But there's one thing you can excel at, and that nobody else around here attempts, and that's photography. Why not try to make a profession of it."
Elizabeth thought it over.
"I suppose I'd have to go to some big town and study," she ruminated.
"Ruth didn't go to a big town to take cooking lessons," prompted Mrs. Spooner, smilingly. "And you were just admiring the fact that it was her good cooking that made the earning of the hundred dollars possible."
"Wise little mother," said Elizabeth, touching her heel to her pony and riding ahead, blowing back a kiss as she passed, and cantering on for some distance.
"I think that's a splendid idea," said Roy eagerly. "I knew a boy who worked his way through college almost entirely by camera work. And he was just an amateur photographer, too."
"I'd help her all I could," put in Ruth, loyally. "She helped me--you all did. I didn't near earn that hundred dollars alone."