"They think it was pushing of them, to come here to live at all," said Ruth. "Well, we're all pushing, if we're good for anything," said Leslie. "Why mayn't they push, if they don't crowd out anybody else? It seems to me that the wrong sort of pushing is pushing down." "Only there would be no end to it," said Dakie Thayne, "would there? There are coarse, vulgar people always, who are wanting to get in just for the sake of being in. What are the nice ones to do?" "Just _be_ nice, I think," said Leslie. "Nicer with those people than with anybody else even. If there weren't any difficulty made about it,--if there weren't any keeping out,--they would tire of the niceness probably sooner than anything. I don't suppose it is the fence that keeps out weeds." "You are just like Mrs. Ingleside," said Ruth, walking closer to Leslie as she spoke. "And Mrs. Ingleside is like Miss Craydocke: and--I didn't suppose I should ever find many more of them, but they're counting up," said Dakie Thayne. "There's a pretty good piece of the world salted, after all." "If there really is any best society," pursued Leslie, "it seems to me it ought to be, not for keeping people out, but for getting everybody in as fast as it can, like the kingdom of heaven." "Ah, but that _is_ kingdom come," said Dakie Thayne. It seemed as if the question of "things next" was to arise continually, in fresh shapes, just now, when things next for the Holabirds were nearer next than ever before. "We must have Delia Waite again soon, if we can get her," said mother, one morning, when we were all quietly sitting in her room, and she was cutting out some shirts for Stephen. "All our changes and interruptions have put back the sewing so lately." "We ought not to have been idle so much," said Barbara. "We've been a family of grasshoppers all summer." "Well, the grasshopping has done you all good. I'm not sorry for it," said Mrs. Holabird. "Only we must have Delia for a week now, and be busy." "If Delia Waite didn't have to come to our table!" said Rosamond. "Why don't you try the girl Mrs. Hadden has, mother? She goes right into the kitchen with the other servants." "I don't believe our 'other servants' would know what to do with her," said Barbara. "There's always such a crowd in our kitchen." "Barbara, you're a plague!" "Yes. I'm the thorn in the flesh in this family, lest it should be exalted above measure; and like Saint Paul, I magnify mine office."