Of course she did not do this when the Marchbankses were there, or if Miss Pennington called; but she could not resist the Haddens and Leslie Goldthwaite; besides, "they _did_ have to make their own cake, and why should they be ashamed of it?" Rosamond would reply that "they _did_ have to make their own beds, but they could not bring them down stairs for parlor work." "That was true, and reason why: they just couldn't; if they could, she would make up hers all over the house, just where there was the most fun. She hated pretences, and being fine." Rosamond met the girls on the piazza to-day, when she saw them coming; for Barbara was particularly awful at this moment, with a skimmer and a very red face, doing raspberries; and she made them sit down there in the shaker chairs, while she ran to get her hat and boots, and to call Ruth; and the first thing Barbara saw of them was from the kitchen window, "slanting off" down over the croquet-ground toward the big trees. Somebody overtook and joined them there,--somebody in a dark gray suit and bright buttons. "Why, that," cried Barbara, all to herself and her uplifted skimmer, looking after them,--"that must be the brother from West Point the Inglesides expected,--that young Dakie Thayne!" It was Dakie Thayne; who, after they had all been introduced and were walking on comfortably together, asked Ruth Holabird if it had not been she who had been expected and wanted so badly last night at Mrs. Marchbanks's? [Illustration] Ruth dropped a little back as she walked with him, at the moment, behind the others, along the path between the chestnut-trees. "I don't think they quite expected me. I told Adelaide I did not think I could come. I am the youngest, you see," she said with a smile, "and I don't go out very much, except with my--cousins." "Your cousins? I fancied you were all sisters." "It is all the same," said Ruth. "And that is why I always catch my breath a little before I say 'cousins.'" "Couldn't they come? What a pity!" pursued this young man, who seemed bent upon driving his questions home. "O, it wasn't an invitation, you know. It wasn't company." "Wasn't it?" The inflection was almost imperceptible, and quite unintentional; Dakie Thayne was very polite; but his eyebrows went up a little--just a line or two--as he said it, the light beginning to come in upon him. Dakie had been about in the world somewhat; his two years at West Point were not all his experience; and he knew what queer little wheels were turned sometimes.