"I'd no idea you were in town," she said.
"I'm not, officially," answered her visitor, "just stopping over between visits. It's hotter than I thought it would be, even on the upper west side."
"Think what it is on the lower east side!" answered Miss Podder, eagerly. "Hot all day—and hot at night! My girls do suffer so! They are so crowded!"
"How do the clubs get on?" asked Mrs. MacAvelly. "Have your girls any residence clubs yet?"
"No—nothing worth while. It takes somebody to run it right, you know. The girls can't; the people who work for money can't meet our wants—and the people who work for love, don't work well as a rule."
Mrs. McAvelly smiled sympathetically. "You're quite right about that," she said. "But really—some of those 'Homes' are better than others, aren't they?"
"The girls hate them," answered Miss Podder. "They'd rather board—even two or three in a room. They like their independence. You remember Martha Joyce?"
Mrs. MacAvelly remembered. "Yes," she said, "I do—I met her mother this summer."
"She's a cripple, isn't she?" asked Miss Podder. "Martha's told me about her."
"Why, not exactly. She's what a Westerner might call 'crippled up some,' but she's livelier than most well persons." And she amused her friend with a vivid rehearsal of Mrs. Joyce's love of the city and her former triumphs in restaurant and hotel.