mpelled to relinquish
the honors and dignities attaching to the post of baby of the family.
And Essie, nodding her little tow head, laid a rose-leaf cheek against
the crumpled carnation of the newcomer. "Nice litty brudder," she
cooed. "Essie loves 'oo."

"My gracious me!" thought Persis Dale, as she tucked the baby into the
battered cradle, never long without an occupant, "It's queer that we
ain't shaking our heads and groaning over this. The Trotters can't
afford a new baby any more than I can afford a steam yacht. There
ain't enough of anything to go around, and yet we're all holding up our
heads and acting as if this was the best day's work we ever had a hand
in. It's no use talking. Down in our hearts we know that life's a
good thing, even when we've got to take poverty and hardships along
with it. And that's why we start in singing Psalms in spite of
ourselves when a new baby comes."

CHAPTER VII

A CONFIDENTIAL CHAT

"I believe," said young Mr. Thompson, "that I've been owing you a
little bill for some weeks, Miss Dale. It had completely slipped my
mind."

He looked old and worn, Persis thought, more like the man who must
settle for the spring finery of a family of grown daughters, than a
complacent young husband paying for his wife's first new gown since the
wedding. There was a flatness in his voice that matched the weariness
in his eyes, and forthwith a dozen questions raced through her alert
brain.

"Well, Mr. Thompson, I hope you like the dress. I always tell my
customers that I'm as anxious to please their husbands as I am to
please them. 'Tain't fair, from my point of view, to ask a man to pay
out good money for clothes he just despises."

Evasion is an art possessed in its perfection by few of the sterner sex.

"Mrs. Thompson hasn't worn the dress yet," explained Mrs. Thompson's
husband. "I dare say it's very pretty." He had taken a little roll of
bills from his pocket, but his absent air showed conclusively that he
was thinking neither of them nor of his answer.

Persis lowered her voice confidentially.

"If I was you, Mr. Thompson, I wouldn't encourage her in that way of
doing. Maybe it seems like prejudiced advice, coming from a
dressmaker, so, but I never could see there was any saving in hanging a
dress away in the closet and not getting any wear out of it, till it
was clear out of style. You know how it is with young wives. They've
got their hearts so set on havin