"I--I--" said Mr. Latz, leaping impulsively forward on the chair that
was as tightly upholstered in effect as he in his modish suit, then
clutching himself there as if he had caught the impulse on the fly, "I
just wish I could help."

"Oh!" she said, and threw up a swift brown look from the lace making and
then at it again.

He laughed, but from nervousness.

"My little mother was an ailer, too."

"That's me, Mr. Latz. Not sick--just ailing. I always say that it's
ridiculous that a woman in such perfect health as I am should be such a
sufferer."

"Same with her and her joints."

"Why, except for this old neuralgia, I can outdo Alma when it comes
to dancing down in the grill with the young people of an evening, or
shopping."

"More like sisters than any mother and daughter I ever saw."

"Mother and daughter, but which is which from the back, some of my
friends put it," said Mrs. Samstag, not without a curve to her voice;
then, hastily: "But the best child, Mr. Latz. The best that ever lived.
A regular little mother to me in my spells."