men's shoes. The skin of her worn, blond face had a look as if the
soil of life had fairly been rubbed into it. All the lines of this
face were lax, displaying utter lassitude and no energy. She,
however, had her evanescent streaks of life, as now. Once in a while
a bubble of ancestral blood seemed to come to the surface, although
it soon burst. She had come, generations back, of a good family. She
was the run out weed of it, but still, at times, the old colors of
the blossom were evident. She turned to Maria.

"If," said she, "your ma sent her out with this young one, I don't
see why you went to pullin' her hair fur?"

"I gave her a whole half-pound of chocolates," returned Maria, in a
fine glow of indignation, "if she would let me push the baby till
four o'clock, and it isn't four o'clock yet."

"It ain't more than half-past three," said Gladys.

"Shet up!" said her mother. She stood looking rather helplessly at
the three little girls and the situation. Her suddenly wakened mental
faculties were running down like those of a watch which has been
shaken to make it go for a few seconds. The situation was too much
for her, and, according to her wont, she let it drop. Just then a
whiff of strong sweetness came from the house, and her blank face
lighted up.

"We are makin' 'lasses candy," said she. "You young ones all come in
and hev' some, and I'll take the baby. He can get warm, and a little
of thet candy won't do him no harm, nuther." Mrs. Mann used the
masculine pronoun from force of habit; all her children with the