Elviry snorted and started to speak but Margery interrupted. "You are impolite, Mama! It's none of our business about Lydia--if she wants to be common." Lydia rose, holding the paper parcel carefully in her arms. "I _am_ common, just common folks! I always was and I always will be and I'm glad of it--and I'm going home." The front door slammed as she spoke and Dave Marshall came in. "Hello! Well, Lydia, this is a sight for sore eyes. Thought you'd forgotten us. What's in your bundle?" Lydia spoke furiously, tearing the paper off the bundle as she did so. "Well, since you're all so curious, I'll show you!" And Florence Dombey, with the hectic gaze unchanged, emerged. "There!" said Lydia. "I never shall be too old for Florence Dombey and I thought Margery wouldn't be either--but I was wrong. I wrapped Florence Dombey up because I do look too big for dolls and I don't want folks to laugh at her." "Of course you're not too big for dolls," said Dave. "You and Margery go on and have your play." "Daddy!" cried Margery. "Why, I wouldn't touch a doll now." "There, you see!" said Lydia, laying Florence Dombey on a chair while she pulled on her coat--made this year from one that Lizzie had grown too stout to wear--"It's no use for me to try to be friends any more with Margery. She's rich and I'm common and poor. She has parties and beaux and clothes and I don't. I'll be friends with you but I can't be friends with her." Dave looked from his two women folks to Lydia. "What've you two been saying now?" he asked gruffly. Elviry tossed her head. "Nothing at all. I just showed a decent interest in Lydia, as I would in any motherless girl and she got mad." "Yes, I know your decent interest," grunted Dave. "You make me sick, Elviry. Why I was ever such a fool as to let you spend a summer in New York, I don't know." "Now, Dave," said Elviry in a conciliating tone, "you said that Lydia and Amos ought to be warned about Levine." "Yes, I did," exclaimed Dave, with a sudden change of voice. "You tell your father to come round and see me this evening, Lydia. I don't like his attitude on the reservation question. Tell him if I can't change his views any other way, I may have to bring pressure with that note." Lydia blanched. She looked at Marshall with parted lips. She never had heard before the peculiar, metallic quality in his voice that she heard now. She buttoned her coat with trembling fingers. "Yes, sir, I'll tell him," she said. "I guess it's no use to try to be friends with you either. We'll pay that note up, somehow. Even it can't be allowed to keep us from believing what we believe." Her voice strengthened suddenly. "What's the use of being an American if you can't believe what you want to? We'll pay that note! If I have to quit school and go out as a hired girl, we will."