s ready colour flooded her face. She made no attempt to answer
him.

"Would ye have them?" the old man asked impatiently.

"Why--why, Dr. Ben, I don't know!" Sally said in great confusion. "I--I
suppose people DO."

"You suppose people do?" he asked scornfully. "Don't ye KNOW they do?"

"Well, I don't suppose any girl thinks very much of such things until
she's married," Sally said firmly. "Mama doesn't like us to discuss--"

"Doesn't your mother ever talk to you about such things?" the old man
demanded.

"Certainly not!" Sally answered with spirit.

"What DOES she talk to you about?" he asked amazedly. "It's your
business in life, after all. She's not taught ye any other. What does
she expect ye to do--learn it all after it's too late to change?"

"All what?" Sally said, a little frightened, even a little sick. He
stopped his march, and looked at her with something like pity.

"All the needs of your soul and body," he said kindly, "and your
children's souls and bodies. Well! that's neither here nor there. But
the fact is this, Sally: I've no children of my own to raise. And as ye
very well know, I've got my own theories about putting motherhood on a
different basis, a business basis. I want you to let me pay you--as the
State ought to pay you--three hundred a year for every child you bear.
I want to demonstrate to my own satisfaction, before I try to convince
any Government, that if the child-bearing woman were put on a plane of
economic value, her barren, parasite sister would speedily learn--"

Sally had turned pale. Now she rose in girlish dignity.

"I hope you'll forgive me, Dr. Ben, for saying that I won't listen to
ONE word more. I know you've been thinking about these things so long
that you forget how OUTRAGEOUS they sound! Motherhood is a sacred
privilege, and to reduce it to--"

"So is wifehood, Sally!" the old man interposed soothingly.

"Well," she flashed back, "nobody's PAID for wifehood!"

"Oh, yes, my dear. You can sue a man for not supporting you. It's done
every day!"

"Then--then a man ought to pay the three hundred a year!" countered
Sally.

"Well, I'm with you there. But the world has got to see that before you
can force him." The doctor sighed. "So you won't let me stand
grandfather to your children, Sally?"

"Oh, if you WERE their grandfather!" she answered. "Then you could do
as you liked!"

"There you are, the parasite!" he said, smiling whimsically. "You're
your mother's