said Mrs. White. She still had a sense of wondering injury that Harry
Edgham had preferred Ida to her Lillian.

Lillian was now engaged to be married, but her mother did not feel
quite satisfied with the man. He was employed in a retail clothing
establishment in New York, and had only a small salary. "Foster
Simpkins" (that was the young man's name) "ain't really what you
ought to have," she often said to Lillian.

But Lillian took it easily. She liked the young man very much as she
would have liked a sugar-plum, and she thought it high time for her
to be married, although she was scarcely turned twenty. "Oh, well,
ma," she said. "Men don't grow on every bush, and Foster is real
good-lookin', and maybe his salary will be raised."

"You ain't lookin' very high," said her mother.

"No use in strainin' your neck for things out of your own sky," said
Lillian, who had at times a shrewd sort of humor, inherited from her
father.

"Harry Edgham would have been a better match for you," her mother
said.

"Lord, I'd a good sight rather have Foster than another woman's
leavin's," replied Lillian. "Then there was Maria, too. It would have
been an awful job to dress her, and look out for her."

"That's so," said her mother, "and then the two sets of children,
too."