nothing. Some of these girls nowadays spend more than your
whole salary on their clothes. And what jewellery has she got? A plated
watch and two or three little pins and rings of the kind people's maids
wouldn't wear now. Good Lord, Virgil Adams, wake up! Don't sit there and
tell me you don't know things like this mean SUFFERING for the child!"

He had begun to rub his hands wretchedly back and forth over his bony
knees, as if in that way he somewhat alleviated the tedium caused by her
racking voice. "Oh, my, my!" he muttered. "OH, my, my!"

"Yes, I should think you WOULD say 'Oh, my, my!'" she took him up,
loudly. "That doesn't help things much! If you ever wanted to DO
anything about it, the poor child might see some gleam of hope in her
life. You don't CARE for her, that's the trouble; you don't care a
single thing about her."

"I don't?"

"No; you don't. Why, even with your miserable little salary you could
have given her more than you have. You're the closest man I ever knew:
it's like pulling teeth to get a dollar out of you for her, now and
then, and yet you hide some away, every month or so, in some wretched
little investment or other. You----"

"Look here, now," he interrupted, angrily. "You look here! If I didn't
put a little by whenever I could, in a bond or something, where would
you be if anything happened to me? The insurance doctors never passed
me; YOU know that. Haven't we got to have SOMETHING to fall back on?"

"Yes, we have!" she cried. "We ought to have something to go on with
right now, too, when we need it. Do you suppose these snippets would
treat Alice the way they do if she could afford to ENTERTAIN? They leave
her out of their dinners and dances simply because they know she can't
give any dinners and dances to leave them out of! They know she can't
get EVEN, and that's the whole story! That's why Henrietta Lamb's done
this thing to her now."

Adams had gone back to his rubbing of his knees. "Oh, my, my!" he said.
"WHAT thing?"

She told him. "Your dear, grand, old Mister Lamb's Henrietta has sent
out invitations for a large party--a LARGE one. Everybody that is
anybody in this town is asked, you can be sure. There's a very fine
young man, a Mr. Russell, has just come to town, and he's interested
in Alice, and he's asked her to go to this dance with him. Well, Alice
can't accept. She can't go with him, though she'd give anything in
the world to do it. Do you understand? The reason she