e to-night?"

"Oh, I don't think Sven would want to go to-night," returned Minnie. "He
has to get up so early."

"He wouldn't mind--he'd enjoy it," said Carrie.

"No, he doesn't go very often," returned Minnie.

"Well, I'd like to go," rejoined Carrie. "Let's you and me go."

Minnie pondered a while, not upon whether she could or would go--for
that point was already negatively settled with her--but upon some means
of diverting the thoughts of her sister to some other topic.

"We'll go some other time," she said at last, finding no ready means of
escape.

Carrie sensed the root of the opposition at once.

"I have some money," she said. "You go with me." Minnie shook her head.

"He could go along," said Carrie.

"No," returned Minnie softly, and rattling the dishes to drown the
conversation. "He wouldn't."

It had been several years since Minnie had seen Carrie, and in that time
the latter's character had developed a few shades. Naturally timid in
all things that related to her own advancement, and especially so when
without power or resource, her craving for pleasure was so strong that
it was the one stay of her nature. She would speak for that when silent
on all else.

"Ask him," she pleaded softly.

Minnie was thinking of the resource which Carrie's board would add. It
would pay the rent and would make the subject of expenditure a little
less difficult to talk about with her husband. But if Carrie was going
to think of running around in the beginning there would be a hitch
somewhere. Unless Carrie submitted to a solemn round of industry and saw
the need of hard work without longing for play, how was her coming to
the city to profit them? These thoughts were not those of a cold,
hard nature at all. They were the serious reflections of a mind
which invariably adjusted itself, without much complaining, to such
surroundings as its industry could make for it.

At last she yielded enough to ask Hanson. It was a half-hearted
procedure without a shade of desire on her part.

"Carrie wants us to go to the theatre," she said, looking in upon her
husband. Hanson looked up from his paper, and they exchanged a mild
look, which said as plainly as anything: "This isn't what we expected."

"I don't care to go," he returned. "What does she want to see?"

"H. R. Jacob's," said Minnie.

He looked down at his paper and shook his head negatively.

When Carrie saw how they looked upon her proposition, she gained a sti