ON the night of the dance, Minnie wore her white machine-embroidered dress, from which the yoke had been carefully cut, to reveal her smooth round shoulders and long slender neck. She had bought new white slippers for the occasion, and white cotton lisle stockings. Her hair, elaborately dressed, rather startled Billy at first, though he agreed with Minnie that it did show it off to advantage.
"Oh, my Lord, Billy, what a time I had doin' it! Seventeen puffs if there's a one, and ma's hands so shaky she wasn't a bit o' help."
"I guess she ain't got over Pete's gettin' married."
"Honest, Billy, it would make your heart ache to see how ma cries and cries for Pete. You'd think that he was dead instead o' married. She won't listen when we tell her it might be the best thing that ever happened to him; and the nice kind of a girl that Els is, even if she is as homely as a mud fence."
"I seen Pete in the street the other day and he don't seem any the worse for wear," answered Billy. "He stopped me and told me that Elsie was a damn fine girl and he was out lookin' for a job. He means to support her even if she did have a neat little roll laid away.
"He said that, did he?"—Minnie always clamped her teeth together when she talked about Pete—"The dirty loafer! A lot of jobs he'll get, and Elsie knows it too. But she'd rather
