"But Ruth nearly always has," objected Flossy, who had an instant vision of herself among the fashionable callers in the Erskine parlor, unable to get away without absolute rudeness.
"I'll risk Ruth if she happens to want to come with us," Eurie said, nodding her head sagely. "She will dispose of her callers in some way; strangle them, or what is easier and safer, simply ignore their existence and beg to be excused. Ruth is equal to any amount of well-bred rudeness; all that is necessary is the desire to perform a certain action, and she will do it."
This prophecy of Eurie's proved to be the case. Nellis Mitchell was called into service to see the girls safely over to the Erskine mansion, where they found two gentlemen calling on Ruth and her father. No sooner did she hear of their desire to be together, than, feeling instant sympathy with it, she said, "I'll go in five minutes." Then they heard her quiet voice in the parlor:
"Father, will you and our friends excuse me for the remainder of the evening, and will you enjoy my part of the call and yours too? I have just had a summons elsewhere that demands attention."
"Isn't that perfect in its propriety, besides bringing things to the exact point where she wants them to be?" whispered Eurie to Flossy as they waited in the hall. "Oh, it takes Ruth to manage."
"I wonder," said Flossy, with her far-away look, and half-distressed, wholly-perplexed curve of the lip—"I wonder if it is strictly true; that is what troubles me a good deal."
Oh, Dr. Hurlbut your address to the children that summer day under the trees was the germ of this shoot of sensitiveness for the strict truth, that shall bloom into conscientious fruit.
It was by this process that they were all together in Marion's den, as Eurie called her stuffed and uninviting little room. Never was mortal more glad to be interrupted than she, as she unceremoniously tossed aside school-books and papers, and made room for them around the table.
"You are a blessed trio," she said, exultantly. "What good angel put it into your hearts to come to me just now and here? I am in the dismals; have been down all day in the depths of swamp-land, feeling as if I hadn't a friend on earth, and didn't want one; and here you are, you blessed three."
"But we didn't come for fun or to comfort you, or anything of that sort," explained Flossy, earnestly, true to the purpose that had started her. "We came to talk something over."