“Oh, I don’t know. Sort of horrid—actressy. She had a pink silk wrapper with swansdown all over it—at four o’clock, think! I was _awfully_ frightened when I got there; but it wasn’t the least trouble. She hardly looked at me, and she engaged me right off. She just asked me if I was willing to do a whole lot of things—I forget what they were—and where I’d worked before. I said at Mrs. Barcalow’s.” “‘Mrs. Barcalow’s?’” “Why, yes—my Aunt Amanda, don’t you know—up in Framingham. I always have to wash the teacups when I go there. Aunty says that everybody has got to do _something_ in _her_ house.” “Oh, Louise!” cried her friend, in shocked admiration; “how can you think of such things?” “Well, I did. And she—his wife, you know—just said: ‘Oh, I suppose you’ll do as well as any one—all you girls are alike.’” “But did she really take you for a—_servant_?” “Why, yes, indeed. It was raining. I had that old ulster on, you know. I’m to go at twelve o’clock next Saturday.” “But, Louise!” cried Esther, aghast, “you don’t truly mean to go!” “I do!” cried Louise, beaming triumphantly. “_Oh, Louise!_” “Now, listen, dear, said Miss Latimer, with the decision of an enthusiastic young lady with New England blood in her veins. ‘Don’t say a word till I tell you what my plan is. I’ve thought it all out, and you’ve got to help me.’” Esther shuddered. “You foolish child!” cried Louise. Her eyes were sparkling: she was in a state of ecstatic excitement; she could see no obstacles to the carrying out of her plan. “You don’t think I mean to _stay_ there, do you? I’m just going at twelve o’clock, and at four he comes back from the matinée, and at five o’clock I’m going to slip on my things and run downstairs, and have you waiting for me in the coupé, and off we go. Now do you see?” It took some time to bring Esther’s less venturesome spirit up to the point of assisting in this bold undertaking; but she began, after a while, to feel the delights of vicarious enterprise, and in the end the two girls, their cheeks flushed, their eyes shining feverishly, their voices tremulous with childish eagerness, resolved themselves into a committee of ways and means; for they were two well–guarded young women, and to engineer five hours of liberty was difficult to the verge of impossibility. However, there is a financial manœuvre known as “kiting checks,” whereby A exchanges a check with B and B swaps with A again, playing an imaginary balance against Time and the Clearing House; and by a similar scheme, which an acute student of social ethics has called “kiting calls,” the girls found that they could make Saturday afternoon their own, without one glance from the watchful eyes of Esther’s mother or Louise’s aunt—Louise had only an aunt to reckon with.