Elizabeth put down the letter and gave her sister's ear a pull.
"Jean Gordon, you are becoming so horribly particular I'm scared of you. Every time I come over here I spend the day before getting out an expurgated edition of everything I intend to say, and even then I fall into rhetorical pits."
"You're hopeless," sighed Jean. "What were you at to-day, a tea?"
"Yes, some kind of pow-wow of that sort. I'm at one every day." She moved about the room straightening photographs and arranging cushions. "Do you know, Jean, I'm so tired of it all I feel like running away back home sometimes."
"Dear me, you don't know how fortunate you are. You'd soon discover, if you got home, that life at The Dale would be dreadfully monotonous."
"It couldn't be more monotonous than fashionable life. Those receptions are all so horribly alike. There is always a woman at one end of a polished table cutting striped ice-cream, and another at the other end pouring tea; with a bouquet between them. If I ever so far forget my genteel upbringing as to give a Pink Tea I'll put the bouquet at one end and make the ice-cream cutter sit in the middle of the table with her feet in the tea-pot."
"Don't be absurd. If you dislike it all so thoroughly, why do you do it?"
"Mrs. Jarvis does it, and I have to go with her. After all, that's the way I earn my living."
"That's the way I'd earn my death in a month," said her sister, looking proudly at the pile of books before her. "Are there no girls amongst those you meet who have a purpose in life?"
"None that I've discovered, except the supreme purpose of getting ahead of her dearest friend. Society is just like the old teeter we used to ride at school. When Rosie Carrick was up, I was down, and vice versa."