Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/237

 like a little dog that she wouldn't harm, but wouldn't miss if it went away. He told her of Vanity Fair and of how he felt about Becky.

"If she had been content to earn an honest living," Jane stated severely, "the story would have had a different ending."

"Well, she wanted things," Tommy said.

"Most women do." Jane jabbed her needle into a length of pink gingham which, when finished, would be rompers for a youngster across the street. "I do; and I intend to have them."

"How?" asked the interested Tommy.

"Work for them."

"O-liver says that fifteen dollars a week is enough for anybody to earn."

Jane had heard of O-liver. Tommy sang his constant praises.

"Why fifteen?"

"After that you get soft."

Jane laid down the length of pink gingham and looked at him. She hated to sew on pink; it clashed dreadfully with her hair.

"I should say," she stated with scorn, "that your O-liver's lazy."

"No, he isn't. He only wants enough to eat and enough to smoke and enough to read."

"That sounds all right, but it isn't. What's he going to do when he's old?" 231