“Elizabeth and I were invited to-day,” said Mary. “We were to let Mrs. Gleason know what Saturday we would have free.”
“They have fine times there—so they tell me,” Azzie said. “I’ve never been invited to see for myself.”
“I do not know Mrs. Gleason personally,” remarked Landis, “but we have the same set of friends. No doubt if I should tell her that I’m Robert Stoner’s daughter, she’d out-do herself to be kind to me.”
“Why,” said Elizabeth guilelessly, “was she such a friend of your father’s?”
Landis shrugged her shoulders. “My father was a man of some prominence,” was the response. “But how is it that she invited you? Did you not tell me that you did not know her?”
“I don’t. I have never so much as seen her.”
“She’s very philanthropic—always trying to help people who need it. I suppose she knew you were a new student, and perhaps hadn’t a wide acquaintance here, so she invited you that you might not find life too dull.”
“Perhaps,” was the reply, with a smile of amusement. Elizabeth was learning a great deal, not less important that it lay outside of classes and books.
The other girls had departed. Only Landis and Miss O’Day remained. Then the former with a whispered “good-night” went tip-toeing down the hall. Miss O’Day lingered.
Much to Elizabeth’s surprise she bent her head to kiss her. “It was very kind of you, Elizabeth, to ask me to come this evening. But the other girls did not like it. Come to see me. You and I will grow chummy over my tea-table. But you do not need to ask me again when you entertain. I will not feel hurt. If you persist in being good to me, they will drop you and you will find it very lonely.”