know?" she said.

"I were," replied Josephine in a sobbing shout. Her head was aching
as if she had been scalped.

"Shet up!" said Gladys's mother inconsistently.

"Did your ma send her out with him?" she queried of her.

"He is not a boy," replied Maria shiftily.

"Yes, she did," said Josephine, still rubbing her head.

Gladys, through a wholesome fear of her mother, had released her hold
on her braids, and stood a little behind.

Mrs. Mann's scanty rough hair blew in the winter wind as she took
hold of the carriage. Maria again tucked in the white fur robe to
conceal her discomfiture. She was becoming aware that she was being
proved in the wrong.

"Shet up!" said Mrs. Mann in response to Josephine's answer. There
was not the slightest sense nor meaning in the remark, but it was, so
to speak, her household note, learned through the exigency of being
in the constant society of so many noisy children. She told
everybody, on general principles, to "shet up," even when she wished
for information which necessitated the reverse.

Mrs. Mann was thin and meagre, and wholly untidy. The wind lashed her
dirty cotton skirt around her, disclosing a dirtier petticoat and