ents.

"Stop that," said Mrs. Samstag, jerking it back, a dull anger in her
voice.

"Come to bed, mama. If you're in for neuralgia, I'll fix the electric
pad."

Suddenly Mrs. Samstag shot out her arm, rather slim looking in the
invariable long sleeve she affected, drawing Alma back toward her by the
ribbon sash of her pretty chiffon frock.

"Alma, be good to mama tonight! Sweetheart--be good to her."

The quick suspecting fear that had motivated Miss Samstag's groping
along the beaded hand-bag shot out again in her manner.

"Mama--you haven't?"

"No, no. Don't nag me. It's something else, Alma. Something mama is very
happy about."

"Mama, you've broken your promise again."

"No. No. No. Alma, I've been a good mother to you, haven't I?"

"Yes, mama, yes, but what--"

"Whatever else I've been hasn't been my fault--you've always blamed
Heyman."

"Mama, I don't understand."

"I've caused you worry, Alma--terrible worry. But everything is changed
now. Mama's going to turn over a new leaf that everything is going to be
happiness in this family."

"Dearest, if you knew how happy it makes me to hear you say that."

"Alma, look at me."

"Mama, you--you frighten me."

"You like Louis Latz, don't you, Alma?"

"Why yes, mama. Very much."

"We can't all be young and handsome like Leo, can we?"

"You mean--"

"I mean that finer and better men than Louis Latz aren't lying around
loose. A man who treated his mother like a queen and who worked himself
up from selling newspapers on the street to a millionaire."

"Mama?"

"Yes, baby. He asked me tonight. Come to me, Alma, stay with me close.
He asked me tonight."

"What?"

"You know. Haven't you seen it coming for weeks? I have."

"Seen what?"

"Don't make mama come out and say it. For eight years I've been as
grieving a widow to a man as a woman could be. But I'm human, Alma, and
he--asked me tonight."

There was a curious pallor came over Miss Samstag's face, as if smeared
there by a hand.

"Asked you what?"

"Alma, it don't mean I'm not true to your father as I was the day I
buried him in that blizzard back there, but could you ask for a finer,
steadier man than Louis Latz? It looks out of his face."

"Mama, you--what--are you saying?"

"Alma?"

There lay a silence between them that took on the roar of a simoon and
Miss Samstag jumped then from her mother's embrace, her little face
stiff with the clench of her mouth.

"Mama--you--no--no