Early in the girl’s life it was expected that ultimately Edith would “marry money.” That was quite the natural and rational solution for every conjugal and domestic woe; Edith must marry money. Not that Edith especially merited the good fortune of marrying money. Simply that if Edith were thus clever enough to land a husband of means, the girl’s family might turn parasites and dip their penurious hands into son-in-law’s golden pile. It is always a daughter or a sister whom a family hold up when it wants funds. Never conceded, yet always recognized, when a boy of means marries a girl without means, he likewise marries her family. What are blood ties for? Why else have we daughters, being poor in purse as well as in spirit? Of course Edith would have nothing to give such a wealthy husband but her bovine body; the mind of the girl is always a thing passed over. So Edith’s education, begun at twelve by a work-gnarled, disappointed, narrow-visioned mother, had solely to do with making her body attractive and planning what would be done with the Unknown’s cash when it was secured. Edith “met boys” at school, she “met boys” at church; she also “met boys” on the streets. Half the parents in town at some time or other took note of those clandestine meetings and opined wrathfully, “If that Forge girl was mine, I’d lambaste her good and plenty,” well knowing they would do nothing of the sort. Because under the jurisdiction of other parents, Edith’s sex proclivities would probably have been diverted into normal, healthy channels. Edith “never did a stroke of work at home.” It was Mrs. Forge’s contention that daughter must be “saved” from it and not get her hands all hard and red or her face lined with premature care, or she wouldn’t be attractive to Money. So Mrs. Forge “slaved and drudged” and was always too tired at night to go anywhere or do anything but retire into the front room and rock in the dark. Edith, like the Dresden Doll, toiled not, neither did she spin. She fussed and fumed in the morning and was always late to school. She “never ate her meals” properly at noon, and after school she was either off on the edge of town, fire-playing with her latest short-trousered “catch,” or sprawled on the couch devouring Charlotte Braeme, Bertha M. Clay or Laura Jean Libby. At fourteen she knew more than most women know on their wedding night and what she didn’t know she was reasonably willing to learn. So Edith whiled away the shining hours around the calendar and Johnathan Forge ruled over a painfully moral household. It is notable, however, that his moral responsibility to God for Edith’s soul didn’t cause him a quarter of the fuss he made over Nathan’s. IV