"Am I, really?" and in delight the younger girl sprang up, her grief over the vase for the moment forgotten. "Am I really like her, Ruth? I'm so glad! Tell me more of her. I scarcely remember her. I was only seven when she died, Ruth." "Eight, my dear. You were eight years old, but such a tiny little thing! I could hold you in my arms." "You couldn't do it now!" laughed Alice, with a downward glance at her plump figure. Yet she was not over-plump, but with the rounding curves and graces of coming womanhood. "Well, I couldn't hold you long," laughed Ruth. "But I wonder what is keeping daddy? He telephoned that he would come right home. I'm so anxious to have him tell us all about it!" "So am I. Probably he had to stay to arrange about rehearsals," replied Alice. "What theater did he say he was going to open at?" "The New Columbia. It's one of the nicest in New York, too." "Oh, I'm so glad. Now we can go to a play once in a while--I'm almost starved for the sight of the footlights, and to hear the orchestra tuning up. And you know, while he had no engagement dad wouldn't let us take advantage of his professional privilege, and present his card at the box office." "Yes, I know he is peculiar that way. But I shall be glad, too, to attend a play now and again. I'm getting quite rusty. I did so want to see Maude Adams when she was here. But--" "I'd never have gone in the dress I had!" broke in Alice. "I want something pretty to wear; don't you?" "Of course I do, dear. But with things the way they were--" "We had to eat our prospective dresses," laughed Alice. "It was like being shipwrecked, when the sailors have to cut their boots into lengths and make a stew of them." "Alice!" cried Ruth, rather shocked. "It was so!" affirmed the other. "Why, you must have read of it dozens of times in those novels you're always poring over. The hero and heroine on a raft--she looks up into his eyes and sighs. 'Have another morsel of boot soup, darling!' Why, the time dad had to use the money he had half promised me for that charmeuse, and we bought the supper at the delicatessen--you know, when Mr. Blake stopped and you asked him to stay to tea, when there wasn't a thing in the house to eat--do you remember that?" "Yes, but I don't see what it has to do with shipwrecked sailors eating their boots. Really, Alice--" "Of course it was just the same," explained the younger girl, merrily. "There was nothing fit to give Mr. Blake, and I took the money that was to have been paid for my charmeuse, and slipped out to Mr. Dinkelspatcher's--or whatever his name is--and bought a meal. Well, we ate my dress, that's all, Ruth." "Why, Alice!" "And I wish we had it to eat over again," went on the other, with a half sigh. "I don't know what we are going to do for supper. How much have we in the purse?" "Only a few dollars."