"If only I might make the third! I'm _so_ desperate for _something_ to do, I envy the servants."
"_I_ envy the men digging gas-pipe trenches along the street," burst forth vigorous Maud. "Do you know they're really considering letting girls come to the athletic club certain afternoons this summer and learn to play tennis? Mamma thinks it's too violent and unladylike, but I'm going to do it anyhow if they decide to let us."
"I'm desperate sometimes," from Adele, sighing. "I'll tell you what I did the other day. I was waiting for Mamma to be ready for a reception. Oh, but I'm a dreary weight on her hands when she gets me to them. I was in the library and I took a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote down all the words that seem most full of thrill and lure to me when I say 'em over. Then I wrote at the top of the paper, 'Thesaurus for the Ennuied.' Papa came in just then, home a bit early for him, and for some reason came over to me where I was sitting at the library table and took the slip from me. He read it through and took me by the chin and looked down at me as if he were studying me. Then he said right oddly, "That bad, Adele?"
"What were the words you'd written down?" from Maud.
"Just what I was going to ask you?" from Selina.
"I don't remember exactly, there were so many of them. Any of them will do. Words that I somehow seem to revel in--_hew_, _build_, _make_, _do_, _fashion_, _kindle_, _evolve_! I don't know," wistfully and a little embarrassed, too "that I can make you understand?" Then with a change of manner, "Have you seen Amanthus lately, either of you?"
From Adele suddenly, "Mr. Tate's grandmother's dead. The wife of the grandfather who left him the money."
"Amanthus. He'll come into a great deal of money now, he told Mrs. Harrison so, Amanthus says."
Monday morning and ten o'clock found Selina and Maud, both more than a little shy, and also a good deal excited, presenting themselves at the door of the Bruce library where Mrs. Bruce and Mrs. Higginson awaited them. The room itself was familiar to them both, with its faded solid red carpet, its book-shelving from floor to ceiling behind doors of oak and glass, its framed prints of Washington, Jefferson, Clay and Robert E. Lee, its incredible litter of papers and pamphlets, its overflow of books stacked into corners and upon chairs.