room. Over the stove she pondered as to the advisability of serving the soup in the Molowonsky soup plates. She reached to the shelf and took down their own china bowls. They were so badly discolored and chipped that she decided to venture in with the borrowed ones. So she filled one plate brimming full (for the guest), while the three others were scantily filled. Jimmy and she were to refuse soup, on the excuse they never ate it. Soup was fattening.
Eleanor was very glad to lean upon the crutch of this excuse after the first spoonful; it was too thin and tasteless.
"Gee, ain't you gonna eat more of it?" questioned Jimmy when he saw her shove her plate ever so slightly away from her.
Eleanor declined with profuse apologies.
The dinner progressed with no mishaps, other than Eleanor's not eating everything that was set before her, and the social error on the part of Mr. Flynn when he passed her the toothpicks, insisting that she have one. . . . "Make use of 'em freely, miss, just as if you was in your own home."
Jimmy came in triumphantly with the beer but Eleanor refused it with a very elegant gesture, saying, "I never take anything with my dinner but a little light wine."
"I like the dark wines the best," said Mrs. Flynn (she had had a sip or two of sacramental wine at the Molowonskys') "but I don't approve of it for the children."
After dinner Minnie brought out the box of new gowns and paraded them before her astonished family, while Eleanor explained at length the necessity of possessing such a wardrobe. Mr. Flynn, with a sickening pallor, sank into the morris chair.
One hundred and forty-three dollars . . . to think that his own daughter had run into such debt. He glanced up to see what Mrs. Flynn thought of it and was amazed at her
