“Who is being the snob now?” retorted Rae. “Jerry is going to have money. Oh, you needn’t look at me like that, Pat. I’ve no notion of ever marrying Jerry Arnold…he isn’t my style”…(was this…could this, be little Cuddles who was a baby day before yesterday?)…“but when I do marry I’m going to marry a rich man. I admit I’m worldly. I like money. And you know, Pat, we’ve never had quite enough of that at Silver Bush.”

“But think of the other things we’ve had,” said Pat softly. Rae, sweet, absurd little Rae, was not to be taken too seriously. “Not much money I admit but everything else that matters. And besides we’ve always got tomorrow.”

“That sounds very fine but what does it mean?” Rae had taken up a pose of being hard-boiled this spring. “No, my Patricia, one has to be practical in this kind of a world. I’ve thought it all over carefully and I’ve decided that I’ll marry money…and have a good time the rest of my life.”

“Have you any one in mind?” inquired Pat sarcastically.

Rae’s blue, black-lashed eyes filled with laughter.

“No, darling. There’s really plenty of time. Though Trix Binnie is married…married at seventeen. Just think of it…only two years older than I am. Her face while she was being married was simply a scream. Jerry Arnold says she looked exactly like a kitten that had caught its first mouse.”

“Well, we had an excellent view of May’s shoulder blades for the space of a quarter of an hour,” said Pat, who had been so furious over the Binnies presuming to invite the Gardiners to the wedding that it took Rae a whole evening to persuade her to go to church.

“Those raw-boned girls certainly shouldn’t wear backless dresses,” said Rae, with a complacent glance over her own shoulder. “Trix really didn’t care a bit for Nels Royce, but when she failed in the Entrance last year there was really nothing else for her. It was so funny to hear Mrs. Binnie pretending Trix wouldn’t have gone to Queen’s even if she had passed. ‘I wouldn’t have Trix teaching school. I ain’t going to have my daughter a slave to the public.’”

Pat howled. Rae’s mimicry of Mrs. Binnie was inimitable.

“I’m sure May is furious because Trix is married before her,” continued Rae. “I suppose she has finally given up hope of Sid, now that he is really engaged to Dorothy Milton.”

“Do you suppose…he really is?” asked Pat.

“Oh, yes. She’s got her ring. I noticed it last night at choir practice. I wonder when they’ll be married.”