to know where I've been--or anything--"

Mrs. Coblenz jerked herself to the moment.

"Did mamma's girl have a good time? Look at your dress all dusty! You
oughtn't to wear you best in that little flivver."

Suddenly Miss Coblenz raised her eyes, her red mouth bunched, her eyes
all iris.

"Of course--if you don't want to know--anything."

At that large, brilliant gaze, Mrs. Coblenz leaned forward, quickened.

"Why, Selene!"

"Well, why--why don't you ask me something?"

"Why I--I dunno, honey, did--did you and Lester have a nice ride?"

There hung a slight pause, and then a swift moving and crumpling-up of
Miss Coblenz on the floor beside her mother's knee.

"You know--only, you won't ask."

With her hand light upon her daughter's hair, Mrs. Coblenz leaned
forward, her bosom rising to faster breathing.

"Why--Selene--I why--"

"We--we were speeding along and--all of a sudden--out of a clear
sky--he--he popped. He wants it in June--so we can make it our honeymoon
to his new territory out in Oklahoma. He knew he was going to pop, he
said, ever since the first night he saw me at the Y. M. H. A. He says to
his uncle Mark, the very next day in the store, he says to him, 'Uncle
Mark,' he says, 'I've met _the_ little girl.' He says he thinks more of
my little finger than all of his regular crowd of girls in town put
together. He wants to live in one of the built-in-bed flats on Wasserman
Avenue, like all the swell young marrieds. He's making twenty-six
hundred now, mamma, and if he makes good in the new Oklahoma territory,
his uncle Mark is--is going to take care of him better. Ain't it like a
dream, mamma--your little Selene all of a sudden in with--the
somebodys?"

Immediately tears were already finding staggering procession down Mrs.
Coblenz' face, her hovering arms completely encircling the slight figure
at her feet.

"My little girl! My little Selene! My all!"

"I'll be marrying into one of the best families in town, ma. A girl who
marries a nephew of Mark Haas can hold up her head with the best of
them. There's not a boy in town with a better future than Lester. Like
Lester says, everything his uncle Mark touches turns to gold, and he's
already touched Lester. One of the best known men on Washington Avenue
for his blood-uncle, and on his poor dead father's side related to the
Katz & Harberger Harbergers. Was I right, mamma, when I said if you'd
only let me stop school, I'd show you? Was I right, momsie