tter
sickness of spirit, than might have been imagined. She and Jim were
paying for the schooling of two of May's boys, and a substantial check,
sent to her mother monthly, supposedly covered the main expenses of the
entire household. Besides this, Chess was working, and paying his mother
something every week for board.

It had been Julia's first confident plan to move the family from the
Mission entirely. There were lovely roomy flats in the Western Addition,
or there were sunny houses out toward the end of Sutter Street, where
her mother and grandmother would be infinitely more comfortable and more
accessible. She was stunned when her grandmother flatly refused. Even
her mother's approval of the plan was singularly wavering and half
hearted. Mrs. Cox argued shrilly that they were poor folks, and poor
folks were better off not trapesing all over the city, and Emeline added
that Ma would feel lost without her backyard and her neighbours, to say
nothing of the privilege of bundling up in a flat black bonnet and brown
shawl, hot weather or cold, and trotting off to St. Charles's Church at
all hours of the day and night.

"I don't care, Julie," Mrs. Page made her daughter exquisitely
uncomfortable by saying very formally, "but there's no girl in God's
world that wouldn't think of asking her mother to stay with her for a
while--till things got settled, anyway. You haven't done it!"

"Well, I'll tell you, Mama--" Julia began, but Emeline interrupted her.

"You haven't done it, Julie, and let me tell you right now, it looks
queer. I'm not the one that says it; every one says it. I don't want to
force myself where I'm not--"

"But, Mama _dear_, we're only at the hotel now!" Julia protested, feeling
a hypocrite.

"I see," said Emeline, "and I'm not good enough, of course. I couldn't
meet your friends, of course!" She laughed heartily. "That's _good_!" she
said appreciatively.

Julia used to flush angrily under these withering comments, at first;
later, her poor little mother's attitude filled her only with a great
pity. For Emeline was suffering a great deal now, and Julia longed to be
able to take her with her to the Pacific Avenue house, if only to prove
that its empty splendour held no particular advantages over the life on
Shotwell Street, for Emeline. She was definitely better off in her
mother's warm kitchen, gossiping and idling her days away, than she
would have been limping aimlessly about in Julia's house, and