“Good for you, Ruth,” applauded Miriam. “You and I are of the same mind. Only I’m enlisted in the cause of a mother instead of a father. But all this leads up to what I intended to tell you girls before we separated. We are going to New York City for the winter. David is going into business there.”
“To New York!” came simultaneously from Arline and Grace. There were murmurs of surprise from the other girls. J. Elfreda Briggs alone smiled knowingly.
“What are we to do in Oakdale without you, at Christmas time, Miriam?” asked Grace mournfully. “The Eight Originals Plus Two can’t celebrate unless you are with them. Somehow every year we’ve all managed to gather home at Christmas. Now if you go to New York to live next winter perhaps David won’t be able to leave his business, and your mother will need you and——”
“And do I live to hear Grace Harlowe borrowing trouble?” broke in Emma Dean. “Our intrepid, dauntless, invincible Grace!”
“I’m afraid you do,” admitted Grace. “I couldn’t help mourning a little. It was all so sudden. Anne, aren’t you astonished?”
“Anne looks as though she’d known it a long while,” observed Elfreda shrewdly.
“I knew David was going into business in New York,” confessed Anne, her face flushing, “but I didn’t know the rest.”
“Neither did I, until this morning,” smiled Miriam.
“It seems as though we are the only persons in this august body that haven’t any plans,” declared Julia Emerson wistfully. “Here are Grace, Anne and Emma, regular salaried individuals. Arline is a busy little worker. Miriam and Ruth are at least useful members of society, and Elfreda is an aspiring professional. Sara and I are just the Emerson twins, with no lofty aims in view, or deeds of glory to perform.”
“You and Sara are not quite useless,” comforted Emma. “Just think what a continual source of inspiration you are to me. Some of my finest observations on life have been prompted by my acquaintance with you.”