Mrs. Payson pushed her plate aside sharply as Henry Kemp threw back his head and roared. "Belle! Henry, stop that laughing! It's no laughing matter. No grandchild of mine is going to be allowed to run up and down Shield's blouse department as a stock-girl. The idea! Stock----" "Now, now Mother Payson," interrupted Henry, soothingly, as he supposed, "you didn't expect them to start Charley in as foreign buyer did you?" Belle raised her eyebrows together with her voice. "The thing Charley's doing is considered very smart nowadays, mother. That Emery girl who has just finished at Vassar is in the veilings at Farson's, and if ever there was a patrician-looking girl--Henry dear, please don't take another helping of potatoes. You told me to stop you if you tried. Well, then, have some more chicken. That won't hurt your waistline." "Why can't girls stay home?" Mrs. Payson demanded. "It's all very well if you have to go out into the world, as I did. I was unfortunate and I had the strength to meet my trial. But when there's no rhyme nor reason for it, I do declare! Surely there's enough for you at home. Look at Lottie! What would I do without her!" Lottie smiled up at her mother then. It was not often that Mrs. Payson unbent in her public praise. Great-aunt Charlotte, taking no part in the discussion, had eaten every morsel on her plate down to the last crumb of sage dressing. Now she looked up, blinking brightly at Charley. She put her question. "Suppose, after you've tried it, with your education, and the time, and money you've spent on it, and all, you find you don't like it, Charley--then what? H'm? What then?" "If I'm quite sure I don't like it I'll stop it and do something else," replied Charley. Great-aunt Charlotte leaned back in her chair with a sigh of satisfaction. It was as though she found a vicarious relaxation and a sense of ease in Charley's freedom. She beamed upon the table. "It's a great age," she announced, "this century. If I'd died at seventy, as I planned, I'd be madder'n a hornet now to think of all I'd missed." She giggled a little falsetto note. "I've a good mind to step out and get a job myself." "Don't be childish Charlotte!"--sister Carrie, of course. Charley leaped to her defense. "I'd get one this minute if I were you, Aunt Charlotte, yes I would. If you feel like it. Look at mother! Always having massages and taking gentle walks in the park, and going to concerts, when there's the whole world to wallop." Belle was not above a certain humourous argument. "I consider that I've walloped my world, Miss Kemp. I've married; I manage a household; I've produced a--a family." "Gussie runs your household, and you know it. Being married to father isn't a career--it's a recreation. And as for having produced a family: one child isn't a family; it's a crime. I'm going to marry at twenty, have five children one right after the other----" The inevitable "Charley!" from Mrs. Carrie Payson.