"Undoubtedly our connection with the rich Miss Carpenter has affected our social position. The air is full of affability. Before we know it, we shall be in society." Norah looked up from her account-book to make this remark.

"As it is all your doing, I trust you are pleased," returned Marion.

"That pretty fraud, Madelaine Russell, asked me yesterday if she might not come with Alexina to the basket making next Friday," continued Norah. "Of course I had to say 'yes.' Now I think I'll ask that little type-writer girl I met at the mission. She is really a neighbor, for she boards in that tall, dreary house on the corner of Walnut and Pleasant streets."

"Why not ask her to dinner? I should really enjoy some company."

"A good idea, Marion. She looks hungry,—I don't mean for dinner, but for something besides work. She is from the country. What have you in that bag, Infinitesimal James?—some more 'finger ladies'?"

James Mandeville, who had at that moment entered, nodded his head, speech being for obvious reasons out of the question.

"Eating in the shop is against the rule, except at afternoon tea," said Marion. "You must go outside, or join Susanna in the kitchen."

"Did you happen to meet Mr. Goodman this morning?" asked Norah.

"Yes, he buyed the finger ladies," answered James Mandeville, helping himself again from the bag, and then passing it around. "I am going to buy him a valentine," he added.

"To be sure, he deserves one. We'll go down town this very afternoon and select it."

"Goody!" said James Mandeville, and in great spirits he carried his cakes out of doors, and was presently busily engaged in playing conductor on the doorstep, calling out in stentorian tones at intervals, "All on a board!"

Norah found the business of selecting valentines in company with a small boy, a lengthy one. James Mandeville's taste was exacting. At first the comic ones caught his eye, and he was with difficulty induced to consider more worthy specimens of art; then he bestowed his favor upon an elaborate white satin heart, a combination sachet and valentine, and again had to be diverted. At length his selection was made,—a gilt and lace affair with a border of roses and the touching motto, "To my own true love."

On their way home they stopped in a large jewelry store where Norah had left her watch to be repaired, and while she waited she saw Wayland Leigh bending in an absorbed manner over a collection of fans,—delicate mother-of-pearl and lace trifles, as frail as they were pretty. What business had he with such expensive things? she wondered. It was quickly forgotten, however, in the difficulties involved in making headway past the show windows, James Mandeville wishing to exhaust the beauties of each one before moving on.

The afternoon was nearly over when, after leaving her companion at his home, she entered the shop, where Marion was busy folding and putting away. Norah stood before the table, pulling off her gloves. Suddenly she stooped and picked up an envelope from the floor. "Did you get a letter from Dr. Baird?" she asked, as she read the address.

Marion's face flushed oddly. "No," she said, "it was just an enclosure."

"A valentine?" cried Norah; but Marion went on with her folding, and did not reply.

Norah walked to the window and looked out through the screen of plants at the Terrace and the faint rosy glow that lingered in the southwest. She guessed what it was her friend had received, and for a moment she was not quite happy. Then she asked herself inwardly, but sternly, "Are you a selfish beast, Norah Pennington?"

Presently Marlon came behind her and put an arm around her. "You don't mind my not showing it to you, Norah. It was only a—"

Norah turned, and with a sudden motion stopped the word on her lips. "Child, what is friendship worth if one minds things—like that? I invited Miss Martin," she added.

Louise Martin was a fair, fresh-looking girl, who had come from a country town several years before, and after a course in a business college had found a position as stenographer in a real estate office. Her gentle, refined manners had attracted Norah, who, persisting in the effort to make friends with her, had at length broken through the distant reserve with which she met all advances. The girl hesitated over the invitation, saying she did not often go anywhere; but Norah's friendly manner won the day, and promptly at half past six on Friday evening Susanna ushered her into the shop.

Norah met her and presented her to Marion. "And now you are to come upstairs to take off your things, for that always seems the sociable way to begin," she said.

Miss Martin looked about her in surprise. "When you said you kept a shop, I did not dream it was like this."

"We pride ourselves on not keeping an ordinary shop, but a most unpretentious one, as you see."

"And this is where you live?" Miss Martin exclaimed with a sigh of admiration, as she followed her guide into a very simple bedroom.

"We live all over the house. This is my room, however."

"It is the most beautiful place I ever saw," the girl said.

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."

"And you don't know who sent it?" asked Charlotte.

"Think of sending a gift like this and not getting the credit for it," said Miss Sarah, viewing it from a practical standpoint.

"If I knew who sent it, mamma wouldn't let me keep it,—at least Alex wouldn't,—so of course I do not know."

It was impossible not to smile at her.

"You are a fraud, Madelaine," Miss Sarah said. "I wish I had the money some people spend on valentines."

"James Mandeville has a more practical mind than Miss Russell's unknown admirer; he delivered his valentines in person and demanded full credit," Marion observed.

Norah whispered to Alex, "Please be nice to my little girl," so Alex took a seat beside Miss Martin and showed her how to begin a basket.

"Miss Pennington says you are a stenographer. I am trying to learn, but I am hopelessly stupid. Do you think one can learn by one's self?"

"I learned at the Business College," answered Miss Martin; and looking Alex up and down she added, "but you do not have to do it, do you? I am glad I can support myself, but there are other ways,—like this,—only I never dreamed of it before. In a business office generally you are just part of a machine." Discovering that Miss Wilbur, too, was listening, she came to an embarrassed pause.

"What would you do if you were to become suddenly rich, Miss Sarah?" Madelaine asked, and everybody stopped to listen.

"Lose my mind, probably," was the answer.

"Riches make people so dreadfully commonplace," said Norah.

"What can be more commonplace than poverty?" Alex demanded.

"Well, I suppose both extremes are bad. It is, after all, the people who have neither poverty nor riches who have ideas and make something out of life."

"I could get heaps out of life if I were rich," Madelaine said.

"I still insist that rich people are to a considerable extent unoriginal and stupid. They associate with persons exactly like themselves, do the same things, say the same things, eat the same things—"

"This is Miss Pennington's hobby," Marion remarked, smiling.

"What would you do if you were to become rich?" Miss Virginia asked her.

"I believe I should go on with the shop for the present," was the reply.

"I think I should start a Settlement like the one you have told me about," Alex said, turning to Norah. "But then," she added, "I should have to learn a great deal first. You can't do anything that amounts to anything without learning how."

Miss Sarah had been meditating, now she spoke, "I think I'd try to give a good time to some persons who never have any fun, to whom life is only a grind."

"There are so many of them," added Miss Martin, timidly.

"I am afraid I have always been dreadfully selfish," sighed Miss Virginia.

"Oh, no, Virginia, you aren't that," said Miss Sarah. "Like some of the rest of us, you may have lived in a small circle, but within its bounds no one could accuse you of selfishness. Let's all promise to remember each other when we come into our fortunes," she added.

After they had gone,—Miss Martin lingering to say with shy earnestness, "I have had such a good time," and receiving in return a cordial invitation to consider herself a member of the basket society,—Norah joined Marion before the fire.

"Do you know, Wayland Leigh gave that fan to Madelaine," she said.

"Are you sure? It must have cost twenty-five or thirty dollars."

"I saw him looking at them the other day. I rather suspect his aunts have spoiled him."