Grace suspected that Ruth secretly worshipped dainty little Arline.

She would have died rather than admit to the girls who had been so good to her that she could find it in her heart to care more for another Overton girl than for them.

"I'm sorry, of course," Grace murmured to herself as she hurried along through the shadows, "but I'm going to make her accept Arline's invitation.

She can go home with us at some other time." She rang the bell at the dingy old house where Ruth lived, was admitted by the tired-faced landlady and ran upstairs two at a time.

Ruth's door stood partly open.