"Who can she get to listen to her for fifty minutes?"

"Birdie Harberger usually calls up at this time."

"Always at supper-time! Never in my life has that child sat down at the
table it don't ring in our faces. The next time what it happens you can
take sides with her all you want, not one step does she move till she's
finished with her supper."

"As easy with her as you are, I.W., just as unreasonable you can get."

"On the stairs-landing for an hour a child should giggle into the
telephone! I'm ashamed for the operators. You take sides with her yet."

"I don't, I.W.; only--"

"You do!"

A patch of light from an upper window sprang then across their path.

"She's in her room now, I.W.!" cried Mrs. Goldstone. "She hasn't been
telephoning all this time at all. Now, crosspatch!"

"You know much! Can't you see she just lit up? Effie!"

A voice came down to them, clear and with a quality to it like the ring
of thin glass.

"Coming, pop!"