“What is the use in fault-finding?” Eurie said at last, half petulantly.  She was growing very tired of this exhibition.  “What did you expect?  They are doing as well as they can, without any doubt.  Just imagine what it must be to get conveniences together for this vast crowd.  They did not expect anything like such a large attendance at first; I heard them say so and that makes it harder to wait upon them.  But of course they are doing just as well as they can, and we fare as well as any of them.”

“Don’t you be so foolish as to believe that,” Ruth said, with a curling lip.  “If you could see behind the scenes you would soon discover something very different.  That is why it is so provoking to me.  Let people who cannot afford to pay any better take such as they can get.  But what right had they to suppose that we had not the money to pay for what we wish?  I’m sure I’m not a pauper!  You will find that there is a place where the select few can get what they want, and have it served in a respectable manner, and I say I don’t like it; I have been accustomed to the decencies of life.”

Just behind them the talk was going on unceasingly, and one voice, at this point, rising higher than the others, caught the attention of our girls.  Eurie turned suddenly and tried to catch a glimpse of the speaker.  Something in the voice sounded natural.  A sudden movement on the part of the gentleman between them and she caught a glimpse of the face.  She turned back eagerly.

“Girls, that is Mrs. Schuyler Germain!”

“Where?” Ruth asked, with sudden interest in her voice.

“Over at that table, in a water-proof cloak and black straw hat, and eating boiled potatoes with a steel fork.  What about being behind the scenes now, Ruthie?”

To fully appreciate this you must understand that even among the Erskines to get as high as Mrs. Schulyer Germain was to get as high as the aristocracy of this world reached; not that she lived in any grander style than the Erskines, or showed that she had more money, but every one knew that her bank accounts were very heavy, and, besides, she was the daughter of Gen. Wadsworth Hillyer, of Washington, and the great-granddaughter, by direct descent, of one of England’s noblemen.  She was traveled and cultivated, and all but titled through her youngest daughter.

Could American ambition reach higher?  And there she sat, at a table made of pine boards, eating boiled potatoes with a two-tined steel fork!  Could English nobility sink lower!  Ruth looked over at her in quiet surprise for a moment, and then gave her head its haughty toss as she met Eurie’s mischievous eyes, and said: 

“It is not an aristocracy of position here, then.  The leaders keep all their nice things and places for themselves.  That is smaller than I supposed them to be.”

At this particular moment there was an uprising from the table just behind them.  Half a dozen gentlemen leaving their empty plates, and in full tide of talk, making their way down the hall.  The girls looked and nudged each other as they recognized them.  The younger of the two foremost had a face that can not easily be mistaken, and Eurie, having seen it once, did not need Marion’s low-toned, “That is Mr. Vincent.”  And Ruth herself, thrown off her guard, recognized and exclaimed over Dr. Hodge.