"Why, of course I'll help," responded Amy, wondering if Mazie, also, would be called on to render assistance. But apparently Peggy's acquaintance with Mazie had not progressed to that point of informality. "We'll try not to be any longer than we can help," she smiled, "and we'll leave you to amuse one another till we're ready."
Out in the kitchen as they wrapped fat oysters in blankets of bacon, pinning the latter in place with wooden tooth-picks, the two girls exchanged significant glances. "What's the idea?" Amy asked, with the frankness of long friendship.
"Well, I'm not sure that it will do any good. But I've got an idea—Don't you know that the impression a thing makes on you depends a lot on the background?"
"Hm! I don't quite understand what you mean."
"Well, if you see a girl on the stage with a skirt nine inches long, it doesn't make the same impression on you that it would if you saw her in your own home."
"No, it doesn't."
"Dick's been used to nice people all his life," Peggy went on, plainly trying to encourage herself as well as to explain matters to Amy. "A girl like this might attract his attention if he saw her behind the counter of a cigar store—"
"Does she work in a cigar store?"
"I haven't the least idea. I only meant she wouldn't seem particularly out of place in a tobacco shop. But here in our home—Oh, it seems as though Dick must see how cheap and tawdry she is."