"She must have liked me or she wouldn't have been so friendly. She
laughed at the Heights,--she called it a 'little, money-saving,
heart-squeezing, church-bound neighborhood.' She said I must study new
thoughts and read the new poetry, and run out with her to grip souls
with real people now and then, to keep my star from tarnishing. I
didn't understand all she said, but it sounded irresistible. Oh, she
was lovely to me."
"She shouldn't have talked to you like that," protested David quickly.
"She is not fair to our people. She can not understand them because
they live sweet, simple lives where home and church are throned. New
thought is not necessary to them because they are full of the old, old
thought of training their babies, and keeping their homes, and
worshiping God. And I know the kind of people she meets down-town,--a
sort of high-class Bohemia where everybody flirts with everybody else
in the name of art. You wouldn't care for it."
Carol adroitly changed the subject, and David said no more.
The next day, quite accidentally, she met Mrs. Waldemar on the corner
and they had a soda together at the drug store. That night after
prayer-meeting David had to tarry for a deacons' meeting, and Carol and
Mrs.
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