We aren't between him and heaven; he is between us and heaven." The spinsters had no counter-philosophy to offer; so they turned to Ruth, who had singularly and unconsciously invested herself with glamour, the glamour of adventure, which the old maids did not recognize as such because they were only tourists.

This child at once alarmed and thrilled them.

She had come across the wicked South Seas which were still infested with cannibals; she had seen drunkenness and called men beachcombers; who was this moment as innocent as a babe, and in the next uttered some bitter wisdom it had taken a thousand years of philosophy to evolve.

And there was that dress of hers! She must be warned that she had been imposed upon.
"You'll pardon an old woman, Miss Enschede," said Sister Prudence; "but where in this world did you get that dress ?" Ruth picked up both sides of the skirt and spread it, looking down.
"Is there anything wrong with it ?" "Wrong?
Why, you have been imposed upon somewhere.

That dress is thirty years old, if a day." "Oh!" Ruth laughed softly.