"Mercy!" Martha exclaimed. "Two weeks! I had not thought it that
long."

"Where's Annie?--and Margaret?" Bella asked.

Martha shrugged her voluminous shoulders with voluminous and
forgiving affection for her wayward, matronly daughters who left
their children in her care for the afternoon.

"Margaret's at a meeting of the Out-door Circle--they're planning
the planting of trees and hibiscus all along both sides of Kalakaua
Avenue," she said. "And Annie's wearing out eighty dollars' worth
of tyres to collect seventy-five dollars for the British Red Cross-
-this is their tag day, you know."

"Roscoe must be very proud," Bella said, and observed the bright
glow of pride that appeared in her sister's eyes. "I got the news
in San Francisco of Ho-o-la-a's first dividend. Remember when I
put a thousand in it at seventy-five cents for poor Abbie's
children, and said I'd sell when it went to ten dollars?"

"And everybody laughed at you, and at anybody who bought a share,"
Martha nodded. "But Roscoe knew. It's selling to-day at twenty-
four."

"I sold mine from the steamer by wireless--at twenty even," Bella
continued. "And now Abbie's wildly dressmaking. She's going with
May and Tootsie to Paris."

"And Carl?" Martha queried.