"Joey," and the voice was weaker, "promise me you won't marry
till the girls are all provided for." Then as Jo had hesitated,
appalled: "Joey, it's my dying wish. Promise!"

"I promise, Ma," he had said.

Whereupon his mother had died, comfortably, leaving him with a
completely ruined life.

They were not bad-looking girls, and they had a certain style,
too. That is, Stell and Eva had. Carrie, the middle one, taught
school over on the West Side. In those days it took her almost
two hours each way. She said the kind of costume she required
should have been corrugated steel. But all three knew what was
being worn, and they wore it--or fairly faithful copies of it.
Eva, the housekeeping sister, had a needle knack. She could skim
the State Street windows and come away with a mental photograph
of every separate tuck, hem, yoke, and ribbon. Heads of
departments showed her the things they kept in drawers, and she
went home and reproduced them with the aid of a seamstress by the
day. Stell, the youngest, was the beauty. They called her Babe.

Twenty-three years ago one's sisters did not strain at the
household leash, nor crave a career. Carrie taught school, and
hated it. Eva kept house expertly and complainingly. Babe's
profession was being the family beauty, and it took all her spare
time. Eva always let her sleep until ten.

This was Jo's household, and he was the nominal head of it. But