Bonestell's drug store, and sit in a row at the soda counter, and
drink effervescent waters pleasingly mingled with fruit syrups and
an inferior quality of ice cream.  Five o'clock was the hour for
"sodas," neither half-past four nor half-past five was at all the
same thing in the eyes of Monroe's young people.  After that they
would wander idly toward the bridge, and separate; Grace Hawkes
turning toward the sunset for another quarter of a mile, Rose
Ransome opening the garden gate of the pretty, vine-covered cottage
near the bridge, and the Monroe girls, Sarah and Martha, in a
desperate hurry now, flying up the twilight quiet of North Main
Street to the long picket fence, the dark, tree-shaded garden, and
the shabby side-doorway of the old Monroe house. 

Three of these girls met almost every afternoon, going first to each
other's houses, and later wandering down for the mail, for some
trivial errand at drug store or dry-goods store, and for the
inevitable ices.  Rose Ransome was not often with them, for Rose was
just a little superior in several ways to her present companions,
and frequently spent the afternoon practising on her violin, or
driving, or walking with the Parker girls and Florence Frost, who