Mr. Addis smiled quite delightedly. “Not at all. I think of a nice home, you know. A place out in the suburbs, with several acres of ground, with a driveway, and--and chickens,” he concluded somewhat lamely. “Chickens!” echoed Bonnie May. “Well, there would be fresh eggs, you know; and then the look of them about the place--especially the little ones, and roosters crowing in the morning.” She shook her head dubiously. “What else?” she asked. “Oh, such things as investments. Ground in the new additions, where the values are going up fast. Such things.” Bonnie May put up a restraining hand. “That will do,” she said. “Now tell me what chance you have of seeing Flora when you--when you haven’t got your pencil behind your ear.” “Why, there’s church. I can always go to church. They make a real to-do over me there. They like to come to me for subscriptions, you know.” At the word church she looked at him with quickened interest. “Did they try to put over anything on you the first time you went there?” she asked. “Not a thing.” “That’s funny.” She put her own experiences out of her mind. “Well,” she resumed, “why don’t you go to church regularly and let them see how nice and friendly you look when you haven’t got your make-up on?” “I’ve thought of that. But you see, it doesn’t seem quite honest. As I understand it, church is mostly for singing, and I couldn’t carry a tune any more than a bird could carry a bank-account. I’d feel like an impostor if I went.” Bonnie May, sitting bolt upright in her chair, put her hand on her heart and moved her head, carefully erect, as far forward as possible, without changing the attitude of her shoulders. “I greet you,” she said. “I can’t sing, either.” “And so going to church don’t seem to put me in Miss Flora’s class at all.” “Still,” observed Bonnie May thoughtfully, “Flora is not one of the Original Songbird Sisters herself.” “No, but she follows along. And I never could get the hang of the thing at all.” Bonnie May laughed swiftly, and then cast a cautious eye at the ceiling, and checked herself. “After all,” she said, “we’re not getting at the real trouble, whatever it is. You know the difference between the old families and the--the others, is that the others talk about making money, while the old families talk about spending it. You’re not an old family, probably?” “Well, I never talk about it, if I am. I like to work. I like to be interested in things that everybody else is interested in. The objection to me, I think, is that my business happens to be groceries. People think of soap, I suppose, and a crate of eggs with here and there a broken one in it. Ugly things, you know.”