said her mother, with an approach to sarcasm that she rarely indulged in,

as she rose and left the room.

Ruth sat quite still for a tine, with face intent and flushed. It was

out now. She had begun her open battle.

The sight-seers returned in high spirits from the city. Was there any

building in Greece to compare with Girard College, was there ever such a

magnificent pile of stone devised for the shelter of poor orphans? Think

of the stone shingles of the roof eight inches thick! Ruth asked the

enthusiasts if they would like to live in such a sounding mausoleum, with

its great halls and echoing rooms, and no comfortable place in it for the

accommodation of any body? If they were orphans, would they like to be

brought up in a Grecian temple?

And then there was Broad street! Wasn't it the broadest and the longest

street in the world? There certainly was no end to it, and even Ruth was

Philadelphian enough to believe that a street ought not to have any end,

or architectural point upon which the weary eye could rest.

But neither St. Girard, nor Broad street, neither wonders of the Mint nor

the glories of the Hall where the ghosts of our fathers sit always

signing the Declaration; impressed the visitors so much as the splendors

of the Chestnut street windows, and the bargains on Eighth street.

The truth is that the country cousins had come to town to attend the

Yearly Meeting, and the amount of shopping that preceded that religious

149

The Gilded Age