woman's name is proof enough that such institutions as hers are rare,
and it was not at that seminary that Ruth Erskine graduated. She was
spending her life in elegant pursuits that meant nothing, those of them
which did not mean worse than nothing, and the only difference between
her and a hundred others around her was that she knew perfectly well
that they all amounted to nothing, and didn't hesitate to say so,
therefore she earned the title of "queer." At the same time she did not
hesitate to lead the whirl around this continuous nothing, therefore she
occupied that perilous position of being liked and admired 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 position, since it
was the opinion of most of its members that it was organized especially
that the "first families" might have a church-home. But they occupied a
very front seat, by reason of their inability to pay for a middle one,
which was bad for "position," as First Church gentility went. What was
surprising to them was how they ever happened to have the money to pay
for that seat; but, let me record it to their honor, they always
happened to have it. They were honest. They ought to have been called
"the happen family," by reason of their inability to tell how much or