Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/82

72 of another twelfth by riding-tickets, at the rate of fifty dollars for twenty rides, and completely gobbled up by private dancing-lessons, and private golf and swimming lessons, and heaven knows what not; I tell you what, you have to stretch every single penny you have left to clothe the child properly, to say nothing of yourself, and your own rags.

"I suppose forty-two hundred dollars a year sounds plenty enough to Stephen," Stella said to her old friend Effie McDavitt. "But Stephen and I have probably got different ideas about how the child should be brought up. Well, I'll never ask him for any more. I'll never go grovelling to Stephen Dallas for money as long as I live! I'll tell you that! No, sir-ee! I've got some pride, even though he has acted as if I hadn't any feelings."

The boarding-houses at Belcher's Beach, as the amusement boulevard was called, were not attractive. The people who patronized them were not attractive either. The women were loud-voiced and loud-mannered, and spent a good deal of time walking to and from the beach, in bathrobes and canvas sandals; and the masculine element, if one existed, was likely to be found sitting in his shirt-sleeves on the boarding-house porch, ready to make remarks to the robed ladies as they came trooping up the steps munching peanuts or popcorn cakes.

Stella did not confide this particular economy of hers to Laurel. Laurel mustn't know that her mother mixed up with such society. Stella didn't in fact mix up with it, but Laurel mustn't know that her mother even slept under the same roof with people of that sort.