She stood poised forward on the topmost step, watching him between backward waves of the hand crank, throw his clutch, and steer off. Then she turned inward, a sigh trembling between her lips. "Oh, Mamma Hat, I--" But Mrs. Goldstone's chair was empty. Into it with a second and more tremulous sigh sank Miss Goldstone, her lips lifted in the smile that had been kissed. When Mr. Goldstone slept, every alternate breath started with a rumble somewhere down in the depths of him and, drawn up like a chain from a well, petered out into a thin whistle before the next descent. Beside him, now, on her knees, Mrs. Goldstone shook at his shoulder. "I.W.! I.W.! Quick! Wake up!" He let out a shuddering, abysmal breath. "I.W.! Please!" He moaned, turning his face from her. She tugged him around again, now raising his face between her hands from the pillow. "I.W.! Try to wake up! For God's sake, I.W.!" He sprang up in a terrified daze, sitting upright in bed. "My God! Who? What's wrong? Effie! Hattie." "No, no; don't get excited, I.W. It's me--Hattie!" "What?" "Nothing, I.W. Nothing to get excited about. Only I got to tell you something." "Where's Effie?" "She's home." "What time is it?" "Three." "Come back to bed, then; you got the nightmare." "No, no!" "You ain't well, Hattie? Let me light up." "No, no; only, I got to tell you something! I 'ain't been to bed; I been waiting up, and--" "And what?" "She just came home--engaged!" "My God! Effie?" He blinked in the darkness, drawing up his knees to a hump under the sheet. "Engaged--how?" "I.W., don't you remember? Wake up, honey. To Kess, to Leon Kessler that she went automobiling with." "Our Effie engaged--to Leon Kessler?" "Yes, I.W.--our little Effie!" A smile spread over his face slowly, and he clasped his hands in an embrace about his knees. "You don't tell me!" "Oh, I.W., please--" "Our little girl. S-ay, how poor Lenie would have loved this happiness! Our little girl engaged to get married!" "I.W., she--" "We do the right thing by them--eh, Hattie? Furnish them up as many rooms as they want. But, s-ay, they don't need help from us. He's a lucky boy who gets her, I don't care who he is. Her papa's little Effie, a baby--old enough to get engaged!" "I.W., she's too--young. Don't give him our little Effie; she's too young!" "I married her mother, Hattie, when she wasn't yet eighteen." "I know, I.W., but not to Leon Kessler. She's such a baby, I.W. He--didn't I work for him nine years, I.W.--don't I know what he is!" "I'm surprised, Hattie, you should hold so against a man his wild oats." "Then why ain't oats for the man oats for the woman? It's the men that sow the wild oats and the women--us women that's got to reap them!" "S-ay, life is life. Do you want to put your head up against a brick wall?" "A wall that men built!"