ur mother'll
have a good time and a black silk dress, won't she?"

"I don't know," sighed Clara Belle, and her voice was grave. "Ever since
I can remember she's just washed and cried and cried and washed. Miss
Dearborn has been spending her vacation up to Acreville, you know,
and she came yesterday to board next door to Mrs. Fogg's. I heard them
talking last night when I was getting the baby to sleep--I couldn't
help it, they were so close--and Miss Dearborn said mother doesn't like
Acreville; she says nobody takes any notice of her, and they don't give
her any more work. Mrs. Fogg said, well, they were dreadful stiff and
particular up that way and they liked women to have wedding rings."

"Hasn't your mother got a wedding ring?" asked Rebecca, astonished.
"Why, I thought everybody HAD to have them, just as they do sofas and a
kitchen stove!"

"I never noticed she didn't have one, but when they spoke I remembered
mother's hands washing and wringing, and she doesn't wear one, I know.
She hasn't got any jewelry, not even a breast-pin."

Rebecca's tone was somewhat censorious, "your father's been so poor
perhaps he couldn't afford breast-pins, but I should have thought he'd
have given your mother a wedding ring when they were married; that's the
time to do it, right at the very first."

"They didn't have any real church dress-up wedding," explained Clara
Belle extenuatingly. "You see the first mother, mine, had the big boys
and me, and then she died when we were little. Then after a while this
mother came to housekeep, and she stayed, and by and by she was Mrs.
Simpson, and Susan and the twins and the baby are hers, and she and
father didn't have time for a regular wedding in church. They don't have
veils and bridesmaids and refreshments round here like Miss Dearborn's
sister did."

"Do they cost a great deal--wedding rings?" asked Rebecca thoughtfully.
"They're solid gold, so I s'pose they do. If they were cheap we might
buy one. I've got seventy-four cents saved up; how much have you?"

"Fifty-three," Clara Belle responded, in a depressing tone; "and anyway
there are no stores nearer than Milltown. We'd have to buy it secretly,
for I wouldn't make father angry, or shame his pride, now he's got
steady work; and mother would know I had spent all my savings."

Rebecca looked nonplussed. "I declare," she said, "I think the Acreville
people must be perfectly horrid not to call on your mother only because
she hasn't g