weekly four dollars and a half. "I don't know what your mother'd
thought if she lived to see the day when you took up with a tough
like Bill Roberts. Bill! Why, your mother was too refined to
associate with a man that was called Bill. And all I can say is
you can say good-bye to silk stockings and your three pair of
shoes. It won't be long before you'll think yourself lucky to go
sloppin' around in Congress gaiters and cotton stockin's two pair
for a quarter."

"Oh, I'm not afraid of Billy not being able to keep me in all
kinds of shoes," Saxon retorted with a proud toss of her head.

"You don't know what you're talkin' about." Sarah paused to laugh
in mirthless discordance. "Watch for the babies to come. They
come faster than wages raise these days."

"But we're not going to have any babies . . . that is, at first.
Not until after the furniture is all paid for anyway."

"Wise in your generation, eh? In my days girls were more modest
than to know anything about disgraceful subjects."

"As babies?" Saxon queried, with a touch of gentle malice.

"Yes, as babies."

"The first I knew that babies were disgraceful. Why, Sarah, you,
with your five, how disgraceful you have been. Billy and I have
decided not to be half as disgraceful. We're only going to have
two--a boy and a girl."