A DISAGREEMENT
It was a doleful Peggy who, coming home late one drizzly January afternoon, found the gas lighted in the living-room and Ruth waiting for her. Peggy acknowledged her friend's presence by a rueful smile, immediately extinguished by an unseasonable shower, as sudden as an April rain.
"There! There! Don't cry, Peggy. I know exactly how you feel." Ruth administered consolation in the shape of sundry comforting pats, while Peggy burrowed in the sofa cushions and sniffed without restraint. "It's dreadful to have them both go at once," she explained in a stifled voice.
"Of course it is."
"I suppose I ought to be glad that Alice is well enough to have Dorothy home again. She must have missed her every minute. I know I shall." A sob.
"Nobody could help it. Such a darling child!"
"Of course she can't travel by herself, and mother was hankering to see Alice, and, besides, she needed a rest. I'm a perfect goose, so there!" Peggy sat up, wiping her eyes with a severity that might have been intended to warn them against repeating their late indiscretion.
Ruth hastened to defend her friend against herself. "You're nothing of the land. Anybody'd cry. And coming home after people have gone away is always dreadful."
"That's why you're here, isn't it?" Peggy gave Ruth's hand a grateful squeeze. "I could hardly get up my courage to come in, till I remembered something I wanted to tell Sally about the supper. You see I am housekeeper now."
"I'm afraid it will be pretty hard for you."