Part 9 (2/2)
And with some of the hoops still hanging upon her arm, she turned to pick up the others. Harry Goldthwaite of course sprang forward to do it for her; and presently she was tossing them with her peculiar grace, till the stake was all wreathed with them from bottom to top, the last hoop hanging itself upon the golden ball; a touch more dexterous and consummate, it seemed, than if it had fairly slidden over upon the rest.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Rosamond knew what a cunning and friendly turn it was; if it had not been for Mrs. Van Alstyne, Ruth's speech would have broken up the party. As it was, the game began again, and they stayed an hour longer.
Not all of them; for as soon as they were fairly engaged, Ruth said to Leslie Goldthwaite, ”I must go now; I ought to have gone before. Reba will be waiting for me. Just tell them, if they ask.”
But Leslie and the cadet walked away with her; slowly, across the grounds, so that she thought they were going back from the gate; but they kept on up over the hill.
”Was it very shocking?” asked Ruth, troubled in her mind. ”I could not help it; but I was frightened to death the next minute.”
”About as frightened as the man is who stands to his gun in the front,” said Dakie Thayne. ”You never flinched.”
”They would have thought it was from what I had said,” Ruth answered.
”And _that_ was another thing from the _saying_.”
”_You_ had something to say, Leslie. It was just on the corner of your lip. I saw it.”
”Yes; but Ruth said it all in one flash. It would have spoiled it if I had spoken then.”
”I'm always sorry for people who don't know how,” said Ruth. ”I'm sure I don't know how myself so often.”
”That is just it,” said Leslie. ”Why shouldn't these girls come up?
And how will they ever, unless somebody overlooks? They would find out these mistakes in a little while, just as they find out fas.h.i.+ons: picking up the right things from people who do know how. It is a kind of leaven, like greater good. And how can we stand anywhere in the lump, and say it shall not spread to the next particle?”
”They think it was pus.h.i.+ng of them, to come here to live at all,” said Ruth.
”Well, we're all pus.h.i.+ng, if we're good for anything,” said Leslie.
”Why mayn't they push, if they don't crowd out anybody else? It seems to me that the wrong sort of pus.h.i.+ng is pus.h.i.+ng down.”
”Only there would be no end to it,” said Dakie Thayne, ”would there?
There are coa.r.s.e, vulgar people always, who are wanting to get in just for the sake of being in. What are the nice ones to do?”
”Just _be_ nice, I think,” said Leslie. ”Nicer with those people than with anybody else even. If there weren't any difficulty made about it,--if there weren't any keeping out,--they would tire of the niceness probably sooner than anything. I don't suppose it is the fence that keeps out weeds.”
”You are just like Mrs. Ingleside,” said Ruth, walking closer to Leslie as she spoke.
”And Mrs. Ingleside is like Miss Craydocke: and--I didn't suppose I should ever find many more of them, but they're counting up,” said Dakie Thayne. ”There's a pretty good piece of the world salted, after all.”
”If there really is any best society,” pursued Leslie, ”it seems to me it ought to be, not for keeping people out, but for getting everybody in as fast as it can, like the kingdom of heaven.”
”Ah, but that _is_ kingdom come,” said Dakie Thayne.
It seemed as if the question of ”things next” was to arise continually, in fresh shapes, just now, when things next for the Holabirds were nearer next than ever before.
”We must have Delia Waite again soon, if we can get her,” said mother, one morning, when we were all quietly sitting in her room, and she was cutting out some s.h.i.+rts for Stephen. ”All our changes and interruptions have put back the sewing so lately.”
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