, and I ain't satisfied yet! Suppose maybe for two or three years
you ain't so much on your feet. Suppose even his uncle Meyer don't take him
in. Don't any young man got to get his start slow?"

"Mommy!"

"Because I got for her my own ideas, my daughter shouldn't have in life the
man she wants!"

"But, mommy, if--"

"You think for one minute, Ruby, after all these years without this house
on my hands and my boarders and their kicks, a woman like me would be
satisfied? Why, the more, baby, I think of such a thing, the more I see it
for myself! What you think, Ruby, I do all day without steps to run, and
my gedinks with housekeeping and marketing after eighteen years of it? At
first, Ruby, ain't it natural it should come like a shock that you and that
rascal Leo got all of a sudden so--so thick? I--It ain't no more, baby.
I--I feel fine about it."

"Oh, mommy, if--if I thought you did!"

"I do. Why not? A fine young man what my girl is in love with. Every mother
should have it so."

"Mommy, you mean it?"

"I tell you I feel fine. You don't need to feel bad or cry another minute.
I can tell you I feel happy. To-morrow at Atlantic City if such a rascal
don't tell me for himself, I--I ask him right out!"

"Ma!"

"For why yet he should wait till he's got better prospects, so his
mother-in-law can hang on? I guess not!"

"Mommy darling. If you only truly feel like that about it. Why, you can
keep putting off the lease, ma, if it's only for six months, and then
we--we'll all be to--"

"Of course, baby. Mama knows. Of course!"

"He--I just can't begin to tell you, ma, the kind of a fellow Leo is till
you know him better, mommy dear."

"Always Vetsburg says he's a wide-awake one!"

"That's just what he is, ma. He's just a prince if--if there ever was one.
One little prince of a fellow." She fell to crying softly, easy tears that
flowed freely.

"I--I can tell you, baby, I'm happy as you."

"Mommy dear, kiss me."

They talked, huddled arm in arm, until dawn flowed in at the window and
dirty roofs began to show against a clean sky. Footsteps began to clatter
through the asphalt court and there came the rattle of milk-cans.

"I wonder if Annie left out the note for Mrs. Suss's extra milk!"

"Don't get up, dearie; it's only five--"

"Right away, baby, with extra towels I must run up to Miss Flora's room.
That six o'clock-train for Trenton she gets."

"Ma dear, let me go."

"Lay right where you are! I gu