"No, and if I could do just as I pleased, I'd like to know them better. I'd ask them to tea." Miss Wilbur spoke as one considering some daring departure from the path of propriety.
Miss Sarah laughed. "I wish you would," she said.
When Friday night came, Miss Virginia did not see her way clear to oppose the basket lessons, and in consequence found herself one of a merry party in the shop. Alex had come over with them, and presently Miss Sarah ran in.
Alex was in one of her bright moods, and Miss Sarah kept them laughing over her first experiences in paying her taxes. Miss Carpenter, as she separated long strands of raphia and initiated her pupils into the art of twisting and stitching, was almost as merry as Miss Pennington, whose infectious laugh, as she related James Mandeville's latest speeches, kept them all in a gale.
Once in the course of the evening, Norah said, in reference to a remark of somebody's, "That reminds me of our friend the rich Miss Carpenter." And when the lesson was over, and Miss Virginia, beginning to murmur something about its being late, Charlotte suddenly announced, "I know a Miss Carpenter in Philadelphia."
There was an odd silence for a moment until she added: "At least, I don't exactly know her, but I have heard a great deal about her. She lives across the street from my uncle, and last spring when I was there I used to see them take her out to drive. She had been ill, and I never really saw her. She is rich, and I wondered if she could be the Miss Carpenter you spoke of, Miss Norah."
It was Marion who answered the question. "She is the very one. Norah thinks a great deal of her, in fact,—is a little absurd about her."
"Why shouldn't I be? Hasn't she done everything for us?" cried Norah, stoutly.
"Then you have seen her," said Charlotte, delightedly. "Is she beautiful and—everything—as Mrs. Wellington said?" she looked at Marion.
"Ask Miss Pennington."