"At the gate, Pa," the girl responded promptly.

All through the evening her eyes kept wandering in disapproval
toward Sally. Joe Hawkes!--it was monstrous. That stupid, common
lout of a boy--nearly two years her junior, too.

They were undressing, alone in their room, when she spoke of the
matter.

"Sally," said she, "you didn't really go sit in the choir with Joe
Hawkes, did you?"

"Well--yes, in a way," Sally admitted, adding indulgently, "he's
SUCH an idiot!"

"How do you mean?" Martie asked sharply. For Sally to flush and
dimple and give herself the airs of a happy woman over the calf-like
attentions of this clumsy boy of nineteen was more than absurd, it
was painful. "Sally--you couldn't! Why, you oughtn't even to be
FRIENDS with Joe Hawkes!" she stammered. "He gets--I suppose he gets
twenty dollars a month."

"On, no; more than that!" Sally said, brushing her fine, silky,
lifeless hair. "He gets twenty-five from the express company, and
when he meets the trains for Beetman he gets half he makes."

Martie stood astounded at her manner. That one of the Monroe girls
should be talking thus of Joe Hawkes! What mattered it to Sarah
Price Monroe how much Joe Hawkes made, or how? Joe Hawkes--Grace's