ALWAYS push Sister." Her voice would sink to a whisper, and her
face fall into her hands. "Oh, Isabeau, I do feel so wretched.
Sometimes it seems as if----However!" and with a sudden desperate
courage, Martie would rally herself. "However, it's all in the day's
work! Run down to the sidewalk, Ted, and Mother'll be right down with
the baby!"

Coming in an hour later perhaps, Wallace, better-natured now, would
call her again.

"Come in, Mart! Hell-oo! Is that somebody that loves her Daddy?"

"She's just going to have her bottle, Wallie" Martie would fret.

"Well, here! Let me give it to her." Sitting up in bed, his nightgown
falling open at the throat, Margar's father would hold out big arms for
the child.

"No, you can't. She'll never go to sleep at that rate; and if she
misses her nap, that upsets her whole day!"

"Lord, but you are in a grouch, Mart. For Heaven's sake, cheer up!"
Wallace, rumpling and kissing his daughter, would give her a
reproachful look.

Martie's face always darkened resentfully at such a speech. Sometimes
she did not answer.

"Perhaps if YOU couldn't sleep," she might say in a low, shaken tone,
"and you felt as miserable as I do, you might not be so cheerful!"

"Oh, well, I know! But you know it's nothing serious, and it won't
last. Forget it! After all, your mother had four children, and mine had
seven, and they didn't make such a fuss!"

He did not mean to be unkind, she would remind herself. And what he
said was true, after all. There was nothing more to say.

"Wallie, have you any money for the laundry?"

"Oh, Lord! How much is it?"

"Two dollars and thirteen cents; four weeks now."

"Well, when does he come?"

"To-day."

"Well, you tell him that I'll step in to-morrow and pay the whole
thing. I'm going to see Richards to-day; I won't be home to dinner."

"But I thought you were going to see that man in the Bronx, about the
moving picture job to-morrow?"

"Yes, I am. What about it?"

"Nothing. Only, Wallie, if you have dinner with Mr. Richards and all
those men, you know--you know you may not feel like--like getting up
early to-morrow!" Martie, hesitating in the doorway with the baby,
wavered between tact and truth.

"Why don't you say I'll be drunk, while you're about it?"

The ugly tone would rouse everything that was ugly in response.

"Very well, I WILL say that, if you insist!" The slamming door ended
the conversation; Martie trembled as she put the child to b