occurred in her life to tingle them into action. She was dressed as
a white woman should be; and that for the present satisfied her
instincts. But she threw a verbal bombshell into the spinsters'
camp.

"What is a family album?"

"You poor child, do you mean to tell me you've never seen a family
album? Why, it's a book filled with the photographs of your
grandmothers and grandfathers, your aunts and uncles and cousins,
your mother and father when they were little."

Ruth stood with drawn brows; she was trying to recall. "No; we
never had one; at least, I never saw it."

The lack of a family album for some reason put a little ache in her
heart. Grandmothers and grandfathers and uncles and aunts ... to
love and to coddle lonely little girls.

"You poor child!" said Prudence.

"Then I am old-fashioned. Is that it? I thought this very pretty."

"So it is, child. But one changes the style of one's clothes
yearly. Of course, this does not apply to uninteresting old maids,"
Prudence modified with a dry little smile.

"But this is good enough to travel in, isn't it?"

"To be sure it is. When you reach San Francisco, you can buy