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.
This climax was too much for Eurie. She threw down her fork to clap her hands in softly glee.
"Oh, Ruthie, Ruthie! How has your dismal castle of favoritism faded! Yonder is the Queen of American society eating pie at this very instant with the very fork which did duty on her potato, and here goes the King of the feast, wiping his lips on his own handkerchief instead of a damask napkin."
It was at this moment, when Ruth's follies and ill humors were rising to an almost unbearable height, that her higher nature asserted itself, and shone forth in a rich, full laugh. Then, in much glee and good feeling, they followed the crowd down the hill to the auditorium.
For the benefit of such poor benighted beings as have never seen Chautauqua, let me explain that the auditorium was the great temple where the congregation assembled for united service. Such a grand temple as it was! The pillars thereof were great solemn trees, with their green leaves arching overhead in festoons of beauty. I don't know how many seats there were, nor how many could be accommodated at the auditorium. Eurie set out to walk up and down the long aisles one day and count the seats, but she found that which so arrested her attention before she was half-way down the central aisle that she forgot all about it, and there was never any time afterward for that work. I mean to tell you about that day when I get to it. The grand stand was down here in front of all these seats, spacious and convenient, the pillars thereof festooned with flags from many nations. The large piano occupied a central point; the speaker's desk at its feet, in the central of the stand; the reporters' tables and chairs just below.