"

"I wouldn't have that yellow old stuff--that old-fashioned junk--if I
didn't have any trousseau. If I can't afford monogrammed up-to-date
linens, like even Alma Yawitz, and a--a pussy-willow-taffeta reception
dress, I wouldn't have any. I wouldn't." Her voice crowded with passion
and tears rose to the crest of a sob. "I--I'd die first!"

"Selene, Selene, mamma ain't got the money. If she had it, wouldn't she
be willing to take the very last penny to give her girl the kind of a
wedding she wants? A trousseau like Alma's cost a thousand dollars if it
cost a cent. Her table-napkins alone they say cost thirty-six dollars a
dozen, unmonogrammed. A reception at the Walsingham costs two hundred
dollars if it costs a cent. Selene, mamma will make for you every
sacrifice she can afford, but she ain't got the money."

"You--have got the money!"

"So help me God, Selene! You know, with the quarries shut down, what
business has been. You know how--sometimes even to make ends meet, it is
a pinch. You're an ungrateful girl, Selene, to ask what I ain't able to
do for you. A child like you that's been indulged, that I ain't even
asked ever in her life to help a day down in the store. If I had the
money, God knows you should be married in real lace, with the finest
trousseau a girl ever had. But I ain't got the money--I ain't got the
money."

"You have got the money! The book in gramaw's drawer is seven hundred
and forty. I guess I ain't blind. I know a thing or two."

"Why Selene--that's gramaw's--to go back--"

"You mean the bank-book's hers?"

"That's gramaw's to go back--home on. That's the money for me to take
gramaw and her wreaths back home on."

"There you go--talking loony."

"Selene!"

"Well, I'd like to know what else you'd call it, kidding yourself along
like that."

"You--"

"All right. If you think gramaw, with her life all lived, comes first
before me, with all my life to live--all right!"

"Your poor old--"

"It's always been gramaw first in this house, anyway. I couldn't even
have company since I'm grown up because the way she's always allowed
around. Nobody can say I ain't good to gramaw; Lester say it's beautiful
the way I am with her, remembering always to bring the newspapers and
all, but just the same I know when right's right and wrong's wrong. If
my life ain't more important than gramaw's, with hers all lived, all
right. Go ahead!"

"Selene, Selene, ain't it coming to gramaw, after all he