David took her in his arms appreciatively.  “You little baby,” he said adoringly, “you look younger every day.  Will you ever grow up?  A minister’s wife!  You look more like a little girl’s baby doll.”

Carol giggled, and rumpled up his hair; When she took her place at the table she artfully snuggled low in her chair, peeping roguishly at him from behind the wedding-present coffee urn.

“David,” she began, as soon as he finished the blessing, “I’ve been thinking all day of what you said about Mrs. Waldemar, and I’ve been ashamed of myself.  I really have avoided her.  She is so old, and clever, and I am such a goose, and people said things about her, and—­but after last night I was ashamed.  So to-day I went to see her, all alone by myself, without a gun or anything to protect me.”

David laughed, nodding at her approvingly.  “Good for you, Carol,” he cried in approbation.  “That was fine.  How did you get along?”

“Just grand.  And isn’t she interesting?  And so kind.  I believe she likes me.  She kept me a long time and made me a cup of tea, and begged me to come again.  She nearly hypnotized me, I am really infatuated with her.  Oh, we had a lovely time.  She is different from us, but it does us good to mix with other kinds, don’t you think so?  I believe she did me good.  I feel very emancipated to-night.”

Carol tossed her blue-ribboned, curly head, and the warm approval in David’s eyes cooled a little.

“What did she have to say?” he asked curiously.

“Oh, she talked a lot about being broad, and generous, and not allowing environment to dwarf one.  She thinks it is a shame for a—­a—­girl of my—­well, she called it my ‘divine sparkle,’ and she said it was a compliment,—­anyhow, she said it was a shame I should be confined to a little half-souled bunch of Presbyterians in the Heights.  She has a lot of friends down-town, advanced thinkers, she calls them,—­a poet, and some authors, and artists, and musicians,—­folks like that.  They have informal meetings every week or so, and she is going to take me.  She says I will enjoy them and that they will adore me.”

Carol’s voice swelled with triumph, and David’s approval turned to ice.

“She must have liked me or she wouldn’t have been so friendly.  She laughed at the Heights,—­she called it a ’little, money-saving, heart-squeezing, church-bound neighborhood.’  She said I must study new thoughts and read the new poetry, and run out with her to grip souls with real people now and then, to keep my star from tarnishing.  I didn’t understand all she said, but it sounded irresistible.  Oh, she was lovely to me.”

“She shouldn’t have talked to you like that,” protested David quickly.  “She is not fair to our people.  She can not understand them because they live sweet, simple lives where home and church are throned.  New thought is not necessary to them because they are full of the old, old thought of training their babies, and keeping their homes, and worshiping God.  And I know the kind of people she meets down-town,—­a sort of high-class Bohemia where everybody flirts with everybody else in the name of art.  You wouldn’t care for it.”