Remembering the dingy boarding-house, Norah understood. "It is all simple and inexpensive," she said. "Miss Carpenter and I pride ourselves on the large amount of comfort we have achieved for a small amount of money. You see we have matting on the floor, with a few rugs; as our landlord would not do anything to the walls, we had a frieze made of this big-flowered paper which cost next to nothing, and relieves the whiteness; the white iron beds and the dressing-tables were not expensive, nor the draperies, which are in our line, you know." While she talked Norah opened the door into the next room. "This is Miss Carpenter's," she said. "We are just alike, except that she is rose colored and I am blue."
There were some things Norah had not mentioned,—toilet articles such as Miss Martin had never seen outside of a show-case, and a silk dressing-gown of great daintiness that lay across a chair in Miss Carpenter's room.
"I was surprised when you said you kept a store,—you did not look like it; but if this is the way you live—" Miss Martin did not finish her sentence as she allowed Norah to take her hat.
That everything about the small domain impressed her, it was easy to see. The simple dinner served so deftly by Susanna, the appointments of the table, and by no means least, her two hostesses.
Before eight o'clock the basket makers arrived, with them Madelaine, who made a pretty pretence of being deeply grateful to Miss Pennington for allowing her to come. Miss Martin watched her with serious admiration in her eyes. Here was a girl little younger than herself, whose whole business in life was to be beautiful and engaging.
"I have brought my prettiest valentine to show you," Madelaine said. "Isn't it a dear?" and taking from its box a gauzy fan, she held it out for inspection.
Norah, who was nearest, took it. "It is certainly pretty if not durable," she remarked.
"I hate durable things," said its owner, with a shrug of her dainty shoulders. "I know it cost a great deal, for I priced one like it."
"Madelaine!" expostulated her sister.
"Goosie, I don't mean since this came."