At about four o'clock on a windy, warm September afternoon, four girlscame out of the post-office of Monroe, California. They had loitered ontheir way in, consciously wasting time; they had spent fifteen minutesin the dark and dirty room upon an absolutely unnecessary errand, andnow they sauntered forth into the village street keenly aware that theafternoon was not yet waning, and disheartened by the slow passage oftime. At five they would go to Bonestell's drug store, and sit in a rowat the soda counter, and drink effervescent waters pleasingly mingledwith fruit syrups and an inferior quality of ice cream. Five o'clockwas the hour for "sodas," neither half-past four nor half-past five wasat all the same thing in the eyes of Monroe's young people. After thatthey would wander idly toward the bridge, and separate; Grace Hawkesturning toward the sunset for another quarter of a mile, Rose Ransomeopening the garden gate of the pretty, vine-covered cottage near thebridge, and the Monroe girls, Sarah and Martha, in a desperate hurrynow, flying up the twilight quiet of North Main Street to the longpicket fence, the dark, tree-shaded garden, and the shabby side-doorwayof the old Monroe house.
Three of these girls met almost every afternoon, going first to eachother's houses, and later wandering down for the mail, for some trivialerrand at drug store or dry-goods store, and for the inevitable ices.Rose Ransome was not often with them, for Rose was just a littlesuperior in several ways to her present companions, and frequentlyspent the afternoon practising on her violin, or driving, or walkingwith the Parker girls and Florence Frost, who hardly recognized theexistence of Grace Hawkes and the Monroes. The one bank in Monroe wasthe Frost and Parker Bank; there were Frost Street and Parker Street,the Frost Building and the Parker Building. May and Ida Parker andFlorence Frost had gone to Miss Bell's Private School when they werelittle, and then to Miss Spencer's School in New York.
But even all this might not have accounted for the exclusive socialinstincts of the young ladies if both families had not been very rich.As it was, with prosperous fathers and ambitious mothers, withwell-kept, old-fashioned homes, pews in church, allowances of so manyhundred dollars a year, horses to ride and drive, and servants to waitupon them, the three daughters of these two prominent familiesconsidered themselves as obviously better than their neighbours, andbore themselves accordingly. Cyrus Frost and Graham Parker had come toCalifornia as young men, in the seventies; had cast in their lot withlittle Monroe, and had grown rich with the town. It was a credit to thestate now; they had found it a mere handful of settlers' cabins, withone stately, absurd mansion standing out among them, in a plantation ofyoung pepper and willow and locust and eucalyptus trees.
This was the home of Malcolm Monroe, turreted, mansarded, generouslyfil