She rose and moved forward in her crackly starched apron. "I--Please, Mr.
Vetsburg, it ain't right, I know!"

"You don't mean you're not going!" he exclaimed, the lifted quality
immediately dropping from his voice.

"You--you got to excuse me again, Mr. Vetsburg. It ain't no use I should
try to get away on Saturdays, much less Easter Saturday."

"Well, of all things!"

"Right away, the last minute, Mr. Vetsburg, right one things after
another."

He let his bag slip to the floor.

"Maybe, Mrs. Kaufman," he said, "it ain't none of my business, but ain't it
a shame a good business woman like you should let herself always be tied
down to such a house like she was married to it?"

"But--"

"Can't get away on Saturdays, just like it ain't the same any other day in
the week, I ask you! Saturday you blame it on yet!"

She lifted the apron from her hem, her voice hurrying. "You can see for
yourself, Mr. Vetsburg, how in my brown silk all ready I was. Even--even
Ruby don't know yet I don't go. Down by Gimp's I sent her she should buy
herself one of them red straw hats is the fad with the girls now. She meets
us down by the station."

"That's a fine come-off, ain't it, to disappoint--"

"At the last minute, Mr. Vetsburg, how things can happen. Out of a clear
sky Mrs. Finshriber has to-morrow for Easter dinner that skin doctor,
Abrams, and his wife she's so particular about. And Annie with her sore
ankle and--"

"A little shyster doctor like Abrams with his advertisements all over the
newspapers should sponge off you and your holiday! By golly! Mrs. Kaufman,
just like Ruby says, how you let a whole houseful of old hens rule this
roost it's a shame!"

"When you go down to station, Mr. Vetsburg, so right away she ain't so
disappointed I don't come, tell her maybe to-morrow I--."

"I don't tell her nothing!" broke in Mr. Vetsburg and moved toward her with
considerable strengthening of tone. "Mrs. Kaufman, I ask you, do you think
it right you should go back like this on Ruby and me, just when we want
most you should--"

At that she quickened and fluttered. "Ruby and you! Ach, it's a old saying,
Mr. Vetsburg, like the twig is bent so the tree grows. That child won't be
so surprised her mother changes her mind. Just so changeable as her mother,
and more, is Ruby herself. With that girl, Mr. Vetsburg, it's--it's hard to
know what she does one minute from the next. I always say no man--nobody
can ever count on a littl