e some miserable little trip, I don't know where, for
a few weeks, before he invests what he's made in another business.
Oh!" she cried. "It's a _horrible_ thing to ask a girl to do: to
settle down--just housekeeping, housekeeping, housekeeping
forever in this stupid, stupid town! It's so unfair! Men are just
possessive; they think it's loving you to want to possess you
themselves. A beautiful `love'! It's so mean! Men!" She sprang up
and threw out both arms in a vehement gesture of revolt. "Damn
'em, I wish they'd let me _alone_!"

Laura's eyes had lost their quiet; they showed a glint of tears,
and she was breathing quickly. In this crisis of emotion the two
girls went to each other silently; Cora turned, and Laura began to
unfasten Cora's dress in the back.

"Poor Richard!" said Laura presently, putting into her mouth a
tiny pearl button which had detached itself at her touch. "This
was his first evening in the overflow. No wonder he was troubled!"

"Pooh!" said Cora. "As if you and mamma weren't good enough for
him to talk to! He's spoiled. He's so used to being called `the
most popular man in town' and knowing that every girl on Corliss
Street wanted to marry him----" She broke off, and exclaimed
sharply: "I wish they would!"

"Cora!"

"Oh, I suppose you mean that's the reason _I_ went in for him?"

"No, no," explained Laura hurriedly. "I only meant, stand still."

"Well, it was!" And Cora's abrupt laugh had the glad, free ring
fancy attaches to the merry confidences of a buccaneer in trusted
company.

Laura knelt to continue unfastening the dress; and when it was
finished she extended three of the tiny buttons in her hand.
"They're always loose on a new dress," she said. "I'll sew them
all on tight, to-morrow."

Cora smiled lovingly. "You good old thing," she said. "You looked
pretty to-night."

"That's nice!" Laura laughed, as she dropped the buttons into a
little drawer of her bureau. It was an ugly, cheap, old bureau,
its veneer loosened and peeling, the mirror small and flawed--a
piece of furniture in keeping with the room, which was small,
plain and hot, its only ornamental adjunct being a silver-framed
photograph of Mrs. Madison, with Cora, as a child of seven or
eight, upon her lap.

"You really do look ever so pretty," asserted Cora.

"I wonder if I look as well as I did the last time I heard I was
pretty," said the other. "That was at the Assembly in March.
Coming down the stairs, I hear