n't be you if she wasn't. You think I would
want you to feel different?"

"I mean--Louis--no matter where I go, more than with most children,
she's part of me, Loo. I--why that child won't so much as go to spend
the night with a girl friend away from me. Her quiet ways don't show it,
but Alma has character! You wouldn't believe it, Louis, how she takes
care of me."

"Why, Carrie, the first thing we pick out in our new home will be a room
for her."

"Loo!"

"Not that she will want it long the way I see that young rascal
Friedlander sits up to her. A better young fellow and a better business
head you couldn't pick for her. Didn't that youngster go out to Dayton
the other day and land a contract for the surgical fittings for a big
new hospital out there before the local firms even rubbed the sleep out
of their eyes? I have it from good authority, Friedlander & Sons doubled
their excess-profits tax last year."

A white flash of something that was almost fear seemed to strike Mrs.
Samstag into a rigid pallor.

"No! No! I'm not like most mothers, Louis, for marrying their daughters
off. I want her with me. If marrying her off is your idea, it's best you
know it now in the beginning. I want my little girl with me--I have to
have my little girl with me!"

He was so deeply moved that his eyes were moist.

"Why, Carrie, every time you open your mouth, you only prove to me
further what a grand little woman you are."

"You'll like Alma, when you get to know her, Louis."

"Why, I do now. Always have said she's a sweet little thing."

"She is quiet and hard to get acquainted with at first, but that is
reserve. She's not forward like most young girls nowadays. She's the
kind of a child that would rather sit upstairs evenings with a book or
her sewing than here in the lobby. She's there now."

"Give me that kind every time, in preference to all these gay young
chickens that know more they oughtn't to know about life before they
start than my little mother did when she finished."

"But do you think that girl will go to bed before I come up? Not a bit
of it. She's been my comforter and my salvation in my troubles. More
like the mother, I sometimes tell her, and me the child. If you want me,
Louis, it's got to be with her too. I couldn't give up my baby--not my
baby."

"Why, Carrie, have your baby to your heart's content. She's got to be a
fine girl to have you for a mother and now it will be my duty to please
her as a