d of a lady if I haven't got the clothes of one."

"Well, when it comes to eating and drinking, blood don't count much.
Everybody's got the same appetite."

"No, everybody hasn't," retorted the girl. "I haven't any appetite for
canned baked-beans and liver."

"You eat them, anyway."

"I know it, worse luck!"

There was a tingling silence for a moment and then Lena spoke with
sudden energy.

"Mother, what can I do? I'm not one of those girls who can go ahead and
don't care. I haven't been brought up as they have. The only thing
you've taught me is that my father was a gentleman and that I am a
beauty. And what good does that do me?"

"Teachin' is respectable."

"I can't teach. I couldn't pass a teacher's examination to save my life.
I don't know how to do anything. And I won't sink below the level of
decent society. I'd starve first. Do you suppose I haven't thought it
all over a hundred times?"

"You can sew very nicely. I'm sure everything you make has real style."

"Go into a shop at starvation wages to make pretty things for other
girls to wear? I stopped along near Madame Cerise's to-day and looked at
some of the girls near the window, with their hair all lanky and their
faces sunk in, working for dear life on finery. Mother, is that what you
want for me?"

There was hungry appeal in Lena's voice, that some mothers would have
felt; but Mrs. Quincy was not on the lookout for other people's shades
of emotion.

"Well, if you'd any sense you'd take Joe Nolan, as I've told you fifty
times if I've told you once. He's got real good wages, and you could
twist him around your little finger."

Lena's teeth came together with a click.

"Joe! Well, perhaps, when there's nothing else left but the poorhouse.
It's pretty tough if I have to marry a mechanic."

"Joe's a good deal of a man. He won't always be a mechanic, Lena. He's
got too much ambition."

"He may, or he may not. Anyway, he'll bear the marks of a mechanic all
his days. I'm not his kind."

Lena rose and went across the room to lean on the little dressing-table
and survey herself in the old green glass. This was her panacea for
every woe. The little pucker in her forehead straightened itself out.

"Look at me, mother," she demanded, turning around. "Do you think all
this is meant to scrub and sew and cook for the foreman in locomotive
works? Because I don't."

She was smiling, but her mother did not smile in return.

"I believe I was most as