nless it costs 'em
something," said the old lady.

"Well, I'll vote for me grandma every time," said Andrew, "and Jim
Clay every second time," as he went out the door, "and meself the most
times of all," he concluded in the back yard.

Mrs Bray dropped in that afternoon for a chat, and grandma mentioned
that we were without afternoon tea because Carry had "jacked up" about
getting it, for reasons before mentioned.

"Just like her!" said Mrs Bray; "she gives herself as much side as if
she was one of us. She's the sort of girl who wouldn't think twice of
telling you to do a thing yourself, and you've made an awful fool of
her by making so much of her. Them things of girls _earnin' their own
livin'_ ought to be kept in their place more," was the utterance of a
woman who believed herself a staunch advocate for the freedom of her
sex; but when Mrs Bray spoke of sex she meant self.

"That ain't the point," said grandma; "I never think it anythink but a
credit to a girl to be earnin' her living, an' would never be narrer
enough to make them feel it. I always make a practice of treatin' the
girls as near equal as within reason, for Carry's every bit as
fine-lookin' an' good a girl as me own, an' if I wasn't here, wouldn't
Dawn have to be foragin' for herself too? but there's reason in
everythink, and Carry might be a bit obligin'."

"Of course she ought to be; but what could you expect of her, took up
with that Larry Witcom, an' does the ass think he really wants her?
He's only got her on a string for his own amusement? He goes to see
that Dora Cowper at the same time; Jack seen him there. I wonder will
_he_ be scared off by being thought a ketch before the pot's boiled,
so to speak. Good ketches, eh? I don't see nothing in none of them.
They're only thought something because men is scarce here; they've all
cleared out to the far out places, and West Australia. It's like a
year the pumpkins is scarce, you can sell little things you'd hardly
throw to the pigs another time, and that's the way it is with the few
paltry fellers round here. It makes me mad to see the girls after
them--_the fools!_ and the men grinnin' behind their backs. There's
that Ada Grosvenor, if Eweword just calls up and talks to her she
tells you about it as if it was something, and inviting him down
there, an' then the blessed fellers gets to think they're gods. It
makes me sick!"

"Yes," said grandma; "I see the girls after fellers now,--there's that