"The Haddens had them one night, when we were going to play commerce.
When we asked them up to the table, they held right back, awfully
stiff, and couldn't find anything else to say than,--out quite loud,
across everything,--'O no! they couldn't play commerce; they never
did; father thought it was just like any gambling game!'"

"Plucky, anyhow," said Harry Goldthwaite.

"I don't think they meant to be rude," said Elinor Hadden. "I think
they really felt badly; and that was why it blurted right out so. They
didn't know _what_ to say."

"Evidently," said Olivia. "And one doesn't want to be astonished in
that way very often."

"I shouldn't mind having them," said Elinor, good-naturedly. "They are
kind-hearted people, and they would feel hurt to be left out."

"That is just what stopped us," said Adelaide. "That is just what the
neighborhood is getting to be,--full of people that you don't know
what to do with."

"I don't see why we _need_ to go out of our own set," said Olivia.

"O dear! O dear!"

It broke from Ruth involuntarily. Then she colored up, as they all
turned round upon her; but she was excited, and Ruth's excitements
made her forget that she was Ruth, sometimes, for a moment. It had
been growing in her, from the beginning of the conversation; and now