"Oh, well: you know what flighty girls are. He's probably a swank-pot. A steward, or something of that sort. I expect he has what's left over, and talks big about it. But she's got ideas like that in her head, and she thinks she's too good for the likes of us. It's too much trouble to her to be pelite these days. I've got the fair sick of it, I can tell you. And then she's always out..._Somebody's_ got to be at home, just to look after Pa and keep the fire in. But Jenny--oh dear no! She's no sooner home than she's out again. Can't rest. Says it's stuffy indoors, and off she goes. I don't see her for hours. Well, I don't know ... but if she doesn't quiet down a bit she'll only be making trouble for herself later on. She can't keep house, you know! She can scrub; but she can't cook so very well, or keep the place nice. She hasn't got the patience. You think she's doing the dusting; and you find her groaning about what she'd do if she was rich. 'Yes,' I tell her; 'it's all very well to do that; but you'd far better be doing something _useful_,' I say. 'Instead of wasting your time on idle fancies.'" "Very sensible," agreed Alf, completely absorbed in such a discourse. "She's trying, you know. You can't leave her for a minute. She says I'm stodgy; but I say it's better to be practical than flighty. Don't you think so, Alf?" "Exackly!" said Alf, in a tone of the gravest assent. "Exackly." vi "I mean," pursued Emmy, "you must have a _little_ common-sense. But she's been spoilt--she's the youngest. I'm a little older than she is ... _wiser_, I say; but she won't have it.... And Pa's always made a fuss of her. Really, sometimes, you'd have thought she was a boy. Racing about! My word, such a commotion! And then going out to the millinery, and getting among a lot of other girls. You don't know _who_ they are--if they're ladies or not. It's not a good influence for her...." "She ought to get out of it," Alf said. To Emmy it was a ghastly moment.