The hotel and the intimacy with Papa was exciting for a while, but then it grew lonely, for the longer his absences were the more brusquely people treated the children. Mrs. McGuire and the kitchen help found them underfoot too much, and scolded, till their only refuge was in swiping cookies and oranges from the icebox and having some really good reason for a scolding. Lena stood up haughtily to the constant, though not really bad-tempered, nagging and regarded herself as an adult, not to be confused with her two younger sisters. She had a dignified private life with her friend Mary Evelyn, and made personal visits to the Friends’, and to her Aunt Lois to discuss family affairs and receive rewards due her advanced years in trinkets, small change, new bonnets, and ribbons. When Mrs. Purdy commissioned her to look after the idiot baby, Lena proudly announced that she was no nursemaid and stayed at Mary Evelyn’s for two days. The job therefore fell to Marcia. Even though Mrs. Purdy gave her twenty-five cents a week, it was humiliating to be caught by her classmates, wheeling the Purdy baby up and down back alleys. Florrie was a comfort, in that she liked to wheel anything, and ran along beside, begging to push the go-cart. Eventually Marcia perfected a scheme whereby she let Florrie wheel the empty go-cart around and as soon as Mrs. Purdy got out of her apartment for her missionary committee work, Marcia plumped the baby on the living room floor, barricaded it with chairs, and then sat on a stool outside the pen, reading all of Mrs. Purdy’s books. Schoolwork was easy to the point of boredom, but here in Mrs. Purdy’s overfurnished parlor was the culture of the ages. Last Days of Pompeii, the works of Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, Lucille, Miss Mulock’s works, The Old Mamzelle’s Secret, Three Musketeers, If I Were King, Wormwood, Henty stories, Horatio Alger books—all these Marcia devoured in a state of ecstasy unmarred by her inadequacy to digest many hard lumps of language or meaning, for the thrill was in the reading. Florrie loyally warned her of Mrs. Purdy’s approach, so the books and chairs could be replaced and the ever-ready explanation given that the baby cried so she brought it inside. When they weren’t counting the days till Papa returned, Florrie and Marcia were wandering up and down past Mary Evelyn’s house, hoping for Lena to come out.

But whenever they were fortunate enough to catch her, Lena was quite likely to strut past them with Mary Evelyn (dressed as nearly alike as their totally dissimilar charms would allow), and if she did speak, it was in no friendly spirit. “Go home and wash your face,” she was likely to admonish Marcia curtly. “You ought to be ashamed going around with your petticoat showing. For heaven’s sake, take Florrie home and blow her nose, and don’t you two come tagging around Mary Evelyn and me, or I’ll tell Papa.”