I know my face flushed. He did not notice my bewilderment and went on, "We'll teach you to play, Miss Metz." Then he turned to the game. Virginia came to my rescue and drew me to a seat near her. She asked me questions about Greenwald. Goodness only knows what I answered her. My attention was a variant. Troubled thoughts distressed me. In Aunt Maria's category of sins dancing, card playing and theatre-going rank side by side with lying, stealing and idolatry. As I sat there I tried to reconcile my opinion of these worldly pleasures with the conduct of my new friends. The tangle is too complicated to unravel at once. I could feel blushes of shame staining my cheeks as the game progressed. What would Aunt Maria say, what would daddy say, what would even tolerant Mother Bab say, if they knew I sat passively by and watched a game of cards? After a little while I asked Virginia whether I could write a letter to Aunt Maria and tell her of my safe arrival. I just had to get out of that room! I don't know if she saw through my ruse but she smiled as she put her arm around me and led me to the stairs. "There's a desk in your room, Phœbe. You can be undisturbed there. Tell your aunt we are going to help you find a comfortable home and that we are going to take care of you. I'll be up presently to visit with you." When I got up-stairs I felt like crying. Those cards actually scared me. I shrank from being so near the evil things. But after a while as I came to think more calmly I decided that cards couldn't hurt me if I didn't play them. I promised myself to keep from being contaminated with the wickedness of the city the while I enjoyed its harmless pleasures. The first horror of the cards soon passed but it left me sobered. I wrote a long letter to Aunt Maria and then turned off the lights and looked down into the city street. It seemed wonderful to me to see so many lights stretched off until some of them were mere specks. There was a wedding across the street. I saw the guests and caught a glimpse of the bride, dressed all in white. But later, when Virginia came up to my room and I asked her about it she didn't know a thing about the wedding. Why, at home, if there's a big wedding and the neighbors don't know about it or are not invited to it, they feel slighted. But Virginia says a city is different, that you don't really have neighbors like in Greenwald.