that neither Mary McFadden nor
Janet would ever give, and that Rosie, as an outsider, could not give.
But even so, Mrs. Sullivan was not to go unanswered. Tom, blushing with
mortification, jumped to his feet.

"Ma, you're the limit! You ought to be ashamed o' yourself! Uncle Dave
makes good money, does he? Yes, and he boozes every cent of it, and
Aunt Mary here has got to work like a nigger to pay the rent and keep
herself and Janet, and you know it, too."

"Tom Sullivan, you shut up!" Mrs. Sullivan's voice rose to an angry
scream. "How dare you interrupt me! You deserve a good thrashing, you
do, and you're goin' to get it, too, as soon as your father comes
home!... Dave boozes, does he? Well, all I got to say is this: he never
boozed before he got married, and if he boozes now it's a mighty queer
thing!"

Rosie stood up to go. "Say, Janet, you promised to come with me this
afternoon. Get your hat."

"Yes," advised Mrs. Sullivan; "put on that old black sailor hat that
makes you look like a guy. Mary McFadden, if I had a girl I wouldn't let
her out on the street in a hat like that!"

Rosie and Janet started off and Tom called after them: "Wait a minute!
I'll come, too!"

"No, you don't!" his mother ordered. "You stay right where you are! You
don't get out o' my sight till I hand you over to your dad!"

Once safe on the street, Rosie put a sympathetic arm about Janet's
shoulder. "Even if she is your aunt, Janet, I think she's low-down and I
hate her!"

"Pooh!" Janet tossed her head in fine scorn. "In my opinion she ain't
worth hating! She ain't nuthin'! I consider her beneath my contemp'!
The truth is, Rosie, I don't mind her buzzin' around any more than I
do a fly! She'd die if she didn't talk; so I say let her talk. If she
couldn't she'd probably do something worse. My mother feels the same
way. We get tired of her sometimes, but we stand her because she's my
dad's own sister.... Of course, though, some of the things she says is
perfectly true. I ain't pretty. You are, Rosie, but I ain't and I know
it, and that's all there is about it."

Janet spread out her hands in simple candour and glanced at her friend.
Then, involuntarily, she gave a little sigh. It was not a sigh of envy.
She really did accept as a matter of fact that she herself was not
pretty and that Rosie was. Where Rosie was plump and rounded and
graceful, Janet knew that she was flat and long and lanky. Her arms were
long, her fingers were long