Four Girls at Chautauqua

me. She nearly always banged doors, and was always in a hurry. She tapped firmly

nd her face was all in a glo

as long enough for the hat she was binding, raised her eyes for jus

n't it suit? Say, are you going? Why in the world don'

never suit, you know; this one was worse than usual. This velvet is a pretty shade, isn't it? Am I going to Chautauqua

nks it is a wild scheme, of course, and sees no sense in spending so much money; but I'm going for all that. I don't have a frolic once in an age, and

oughtfully for some s

ney, I suppose one could hardly spend as much there as at Long Branch or Saratoga

nd live in a tent, and do nothing civilized for a

ss Erskine asked, still speaking thoug

at precious few people go for the sake of the meetings. He says it is a grand jollification, with a bit of

he little lady who entered fitted her name perfectly. She was small and fair, blue-eyed, flossy yellow curls lying on her shoulders, her voice was small and sweet, almost too sweet or too so

and Kit thinks it is sillier, and mamma thinks it is the very silliest thing I ever did yet; but for all that I am going-that is, if the rest of you are." Which, by the way, was always this l

er she will go or not. I don't see now she can afford it myself any more than I can; but, of course, that is her own concern. We can go anyway, whether she does or not-only I don't want to, I want

severely plain. In one of the plainest of these, wearing an unmistakable boarding-house look, in a back room on the second floor, the object of their search, in a dark calico dress, with her sleeves rolled above her elbows, had her hands immersed in a wash-bowl of suds, and was doing up linen collars. She was one of those miserable creatures in this weary

who asked the important

y as though the question h

en we talked it over before. I am washing out my collars

ontemplation of her brown glov

ings. Why, I haven't deci

ear my black suit. Put it on on Tuesday morning, or Monday is it that we start? and wear it until we return. I may take it off, to be sure, whi

out baggage. It is horrid, I think, to go away with only one dress, and feel obliged to wear it whet

to introduce the dress question. I venture to say not one of us h

a trifle pinker for the operation, was ready to lean against a chair and discuss ways and means. Her long apprenticeshi

-of-course article, neither to be particularly prized nor despised; it was convenient, of course, and must be an annoyance when one had to do without it; but of that, by practical experience, she knew nothing. Yet Ruth was by no means a "pink-and-white" girl without character; on the contrary, she had plenty of character, but hitherto it had been frittered away on nothings, until it looked as much like nothing as it could. She was the sort of person whom education and circumstances of the right sort would have developed into splendor, but the development had not taken place. Now you a

and envied, all in one. Very few people loved her, and queerly enough she knew that too, and instead of resenting it realized that she could not see why they should. She was, moreover, remarkably careful as to her leading after all, and those who followed were sure of being led in an eminently respectable and fashionable way. Her most intimate friend was Eurie Mitchell, which was not strange when one considered what remarkable opposites in character they were. Eureka J. Mitchell was the respectable sounding name that the young lady bore, but the full name would have sounded utterly strange to her ears, the wild little word "Eurie" seeming to have been made on purpose for her. She was the eldest daughter of a large, good-natured, hard-working, much-bewildered family. They never knew just where they belonged. They went to the First Church, which for itself should have settled their positi

consult. She had an uncle and aunt who lived where she called "home," and with whom she spent her vacations, but they were the poorest of hard-working country people, who stood in awe of Marion and her education, and by no means ventured to interfere with her plans. Marion was as independent in her way as Ruth was in hers, but they were very different ways. Ruth, for instance, indulged her independence in the matter of dress, by spending a small fortune in looking elegantly unlike everybody else, and straightway created a frantic desire in her set to look as nearly like her as possible. But no one cared to look like Marion, in her severely plain black or brown suits, with almost and sometimes quite no trimmings at all on them. It was agreed that she looked remarkably well, but so unlike any one else they didn't see how she could bring herself to dressing so. She laughed when this was hinted to her, and got what comfort she could out of the fact that she was considered "odd." In a certain way she ruled them all, Ruth Erskine included, though tha

circle in which their lives whirled was as unlike as possible. The Erskines were the cream, cultured, traveled, wealthy, aristocratic as to blood and as to manners, literary in the sense that they bought rare books, and knew why they were rare. The Mitchells had a calling acquaintance with their family because Dr. Mitchell was their chosen physician, but that came to pass through an accident, and not many of the doctor's patrons were of just the same stamp. This family never went to the Erskine entertainments, never were invited to go to the other entertainments starting from the same circle, yet they had their friends and many of them. The Shipleys were free-and-easy, c

to Chautauqua-were to start on