"Nothing from the side-lines, please," she said. "After they've gone
she can go to bed, or she can sit up, pretending to read, but really
wondering if that squeaky sound coming from the direction of the
kitchen is a loose screw in the storm door, or if it's some one trying
to break into the flat. And she'd rather sit there, scared green, than
go back through that long hall to find out. And when Tillie comes home
with her young man at eleven o'clock, though she promised not to stay
out later than ten, she rushes back to the kitchen and falls on her
neck, she's so happy to see her. Oh, it's a gay life. You talk about
the heroism of the early Pilgrim mothers! I'd like to know what they
had on the average traveling man's wife."

"Bess goes to the matinee every Saturday," he began, in feeble
defense.

"Matinee!" scoffed Emma McChesney. "Do you think any woman goes to
matinee by preference? Nobody goes but girls of sixteen, and confirmed
old maids without brothers, and traveling men's wives. Matinee! Say,
would you ever hesitate to choose between an all-day train and a
sleeper? It's the same idea. What a woman calls going to the theater
is something very different. It means taking a nap in the afternoon,
so her eyes will be bright at night, and then starting at about five
o'clock to dress, and lay her husband's clean things out on the bed.
She loves it. She even enjoys getting his bath towels ready, and
putting his shaving things where he can lay his hands on 'em, and
telling the girl to have dinner ready promptly at six-thirty. It means
getting out her good dress that hangs in the closet with a cretonne
bag covering it, and her black satin coat, and her hat with the
paradise aigrettes that she bought with what she saved out of the