She had been much pleased with Sherry during the two weeks she had been her guest, and had often thought of inviting her again for a longer visit and including Kate in the invitation. But the habits of years are not easily broken, and she shrank from anything which would change her quiet ways as two young girls would do. “Too much trouble, and costly, too,” she said to herself, thinking of the expense when Sherry was with them the previous year. They had done the handsome thing then, and it must suffice for a while at least. And still Mrs. Pledger often found herself thinking of the girl who had filled the house with so much brightness, and was making up her mind to take her to some cheap watering place when Sherry appeared and made the startling announcement that she was going as a waitress for the summer to Maplehurst! “You don’t mean it!” she said, and Sherry replied, “I do, most certainly. I want to do something; and lots of nice girls go as waitresses to these places, and it don’t hurt them any. Nothing hurts that is respectable, and I shall still be Fanny Sherman, and I want to see the world away from Buford.” In her admiration of the girl Mrs. Pledger came near offering to take her to some fashionable watering place where she could see the world far better than at Maplehurst, but the expense came up as a hindrance. Perhaps it was just as well to let her try her wings a little, and the Marshes were sure to recognize in her a superiority over the other girls and treat her accordingly, she thought, and suppressed her first impulse and began to speak of Maplehurst as it was when she was there as a girl.