midly in its silken
sleeve. It amazed him, for it was like marble. Still, he hated to lose
her from the neighborliness of the office; he hated to send her out
among the workmen with their rough language and their undoubted
readiness to haze her and teach her her place. But she was stubborn
and he saw that her threat was in earnest when she said:

"If you don't give me a job, I'll go to some other company."

Then he yielded and wrote her a note to the superintendent of the
yard, and said:

"You can begin to-morrow."

She smiled in her triumph and made the very womanly comment: "But I
haven't a thing to wear. Do you know a good ladies' tailor who can fit
me out with overalls, some one who has been 'Breeches-maker to the
Queen' and can drape a baby-blue denim pant modishly?"

The upshot of it was that she decided to make her own trousseau, and
she went shopping for materials and patterns. She ended by visiting an
emporium for "gents' furnishings." The storekeeper asked her what
size her husband wore, and she said:

"Just about my own."

He gave her the smallest suit in stock, and she held it up against
her. It was much too brief, and she was heartened to know that there
were workmen littler than she.

She bought the garment that came nearest to her own dimensions, and
hurried home with it joyously. It proved to be a perfect misfit, and
she worked over it as if it were a coming-out gown; and indeed it was
her costume for her debut into the world of manual labor.

Abbie dropped in and surprised her in her attitudes and was handsomely
scandalized:

"When's the masquerade?" she asked.

Mamise told her of her new career.

Abbie was appalled. "It's against the Bible for a woman to wear a
man's things!" she protested. Abbie could quote the Scripture for
every discouraging purpose.

"I'd rather wear them than wash them," said Mamise; "and if you'll
take my advice you'll get a suit of overalls yourself and earn an
honest living and five times as much money as Jake would give you--if
he ever gave you any."

But Abbie wailed that Mamise had gone indecent as well as crazy, and
trembled at the thought of what the gossips along the row would do
with the family reputation. The worst of it was that Mamise had money
in the bank and did not have to work.

That was the incomprehensible thing to Jake Nuddle. He accepted the
familiar theory that all capital is stolen goods, and he reproached
Mamise with the double theft of