"A lovely time!" echoed Dorothy. "Well, you are a funny girl."
"Are the boys here with Arthur?" Ruth went on, noticing for the first time the hum of voices in the library.
"Yes," answered Dolly. "They're busy over their everlasting stamps as usual. I've just been in to see if Frank was ready to go home and I told them where you were."
"Do come in again with me," begged Ruth, "and see if they like what
I have for them."
A stormy discussion was in progress when they entered the room, but Phil, who never forgot his good manners, got up to find chairs for the young ladies, and the other boys fired a volley of questions at Ruth, who could hardly stop to answer them, so great was her excitement. She laid the old envelopes on the table with an air of triumph. "I do hope you'll find something there that's really valuable," she added, "for Miss Cynthia was so pleased at the idea of giving you something you would like. She said you boys had always been so nice to her."
Ruth's face and manner were the perfection of innocence, but for some reason there was a tinge of discomfort in the manner of the boys gathered around the table.
"That looks like a good one, Phil," said Arthur, pushing an envelope across the table. "Just look it up in the catalogue, will you?"
"She said that Joe," Ruth went on relentlessly, "had always been very good about doing errands for her and seeing her home from his grandmother's."
"I never did anything for her," blustered Joe, turning red, "except what I had to."
"And she told me that for one whole winter, Frank and Bert kept all her paths clean," pursued Ruth, purposely refraining from looking at her unhappy victims, "and wouldn't take a cent for it when she wanted to pay them."