"Out calling. You look heated, Jennie; let me fan you."

"Thanks. How refreshing! Sandal-wood, is it not? Where is your father?"

"He is writing in the library. Do you wish to see him?"

"Oh, no, no! I must see you alone. I am so glad Aunt Esther is out. Why
aren't you with her, Ruth? You should not let your mother go off alone."

The young girl laughed in merry surprise.

"Why, Jennie, you forgot that Mamma has been used all her life to going out
without me; it is only within the last few months that I have been her
companion."

"I know," replied her visitor, leaning back with a grim expression of
disapproval, "and I think it the queerest arrangement I ever heard of. The
idea of a father having the sole care of a daughter up to her twenty-first
birthday, and then delivering her, like a piece of joint property, over to
her mother! Oh, I know that according to their lights it did not seem
absurd, but the very idea of it is contrary to nature. Of course we all
know that your father was peculiarly fitted to undertake your training, and
in this way your mother could more easily indulge her love of society; but
as it is, no wonder she is as jealous of your success in her realm as your
father was in his; no wonder she overdoes things to make up for lost time.
How do you like it, Ruth?"

"What?" softly inquired her cousin, slowly waving the dainty fan, while a
smile lighted up the gravity of her face at this onslaught.