me.

"Oh, Sarah, please won't you shut the door?" Saxon pleaded.

The door slammed violently, and Saxon, ere she fell to crying again,
could hear her sister-in-law lumbering about the kitchen and talking
loudly to herself.

CHAPTER II

Each bought her own ticket at the entrance to Weasel Park. And each, as
she laid her half-dollar down, was distinctly aware of how many pieces
of fancy starch were represented by the coin. It was too early for the
crowd, but bricklayers and their families, laden with huge lunch-baskets
and armfuls of babies, were already going in--a healthy, husky race
of workmen, well-paid and robustly fed. And with them, here and there,
undisguised by their decent American clothing, smaller in bulk and
stature, weazened not alone by age but by the pinch of lean years and
early hardship, were grandfathers and mothers who had patently first
seen the light of day on old Irish soil. Their faces showed content and
pride as they limped along with this lusty progeny of theirs that had
fed on better food.

Not with these did Mary and Saxon belong. They knew them not, had no
acquaintances among them. It did not matter whether the festival were
Irish, German, or Slavonian; whether the picnic was the Bricklayers',
the Brewers', or the Butchers'. They, the girls, were of the dancing
crowd that swelled by a certain constant percentage the gate receipts of
all the picnics.

They strolled about among the booths where peanuts were grinding
and popcorn was roasting in preparation for the day, and went on
and inspected the dance floor of the pavilion. Saxon, clinging to an
imaginary partner, essayed a few steps of the dip-waltz. Mary clapped
her hands.

"My!" she cried. "You're just swell! An' them stockin's is peaches."

Saxon smiled with appreciation, pointed out her foot, velvet-slippered
with high Cuban heels, and slightly lifted the tight black skirt,
exposing a trim ankle and delicate swell of calf, the white flesh
gleaming through the thinnest and flimsiest of fifty-cent black silk
stockings. She was slender, not tall, yet the due round lines of
womanhood were hers. On her white shirtwaist was a pleated jabot of
cheap lace, caught with a large novelty pin of imitation coral. Over the
shirtwaist was a natty jacket, elbow-sleeved, and to the elbows she wore
gloves of imitation suede. The one essentially natural touch about her
appearance was the few curls, strangers to curling-irons, that escaped
from