"Do you think," she said, after the retreat of one of the comers and
goers left her alone with him again, "that those young ladies would like
me to call on them?"
"Those young ladies?" Beaton echoed. "Miss Leighton and--"
"No; I have been there with my aunt's cards already."
"Oh yes," said Beaton, as if he had known of it; he admired the pluck and
pride with which Alma had refrained from ever mentioning the fact to him,
and had kept her mother from mentioning it, which must have been
difficult.
"I mean the Miss Dryfooses. It seems really barbarous, if nobody goes
near them. We do all kinds of things, and help all kinds of people in
some ways, but we let strangers remain strangers unless they know how to
make their way among us."
"The Dryfooses certainly wouldn't know how to make their way among you,"
said Beaton, with a sort of dreamy absence in his tone.
Miss Vance went on, speaking out the process of reasoning in her mind,
rather than any conclusions she had reached. "We defend ourselves by
trying to believe that they must have friends of their own, or that they
would think us patronizing, and wouldn't like being made the objects of
social charity; but they needn't really suppose anything of the kind.
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