eing a
lady than most. Some of these things in town here turn up their noses
at her an' say, 'She's only old Mrs Clay's granddaughter, who keeps a
accommodation house,' but I pay me bills and ain't ashamed to walk up
town an' look 'em all in the face."

"But it's generally those who owe the most who have the most lordly
mien."

"You're right. I could point you out some of them up town as hasn't a
shirt to their back, an' they look as they owned everythink--the
brazenest things!" The old dame's indignation waxed startling in its
intensity.

"But I was going to tell you about young Eweword. I've set me heart on
him for Dawn. He's somethink worth lookin' at an' worth havin' too. He
knows how to farm and make it pay, an' owns one of the best pieces of
land about Noonoon--all his own. Dawn don't seem to take to him as
she ought. He was after a girl here in town, a Dora Cowper, an' so she
says she ain't goin' to take any leavin's; but he ain't any leavin's,
she can be sure of that, for if he'd wanted Dora Cowper they'd have
snapped him up, an' I think as long as a young feller don't go making
too much of a fool of a girl, a little flirtation's only natural. This
has been the mischief with Dawn. There's a lot of people here in the
summer from the city, and they're all taken with her, and for
everlasting telling her she's wasting her talents here, that she ought
to be on the stage. It's a wonder people can't mind their own
concerns!" (The old dame grew choleric again.) "It makes her think
what I can give her ain't good enough. It's all very fine in a good
comfortable home of her own, with love and protection around her, to
think people mean that sort of thing, an' that w'en she walked out in
the world they would be anxious to worship her. Just let her go out
an' try, an' she'd find it all moonshine; but w'en I tell her, she
only thinks I'm a old pig, an' only she's that stubborn I know she'd
never come back. (I would be the same myself w'en young, so can't
blame her.) I'd let her have a taste of hardship to bring her to her
bearin's. But while I'm alive she'll never have my consent to be a
actress. W'en I was young they was looked upon as the lowest hussies.
I'd like to hear what my mother would say if I had wanted to be
one--paintin' meself up an' kickin' up me heels and showin' meself
before men in the loudest manner!"

I concluded not to divulge my profession while at Clay's, and to boot,
I held much the same point of