"Elaine!" cried Mrs. Marshall with a horror which was at least sincere. To acknowledge, even to Peggy, the pressing character of their need, seemed to the poor lady a shocking piece of indelicacy. Her weak chin quivered, as she struggled with her emotions. Peggy possessed enough of the divine art of putting herself in another’s place to realize that the consternation, so absurd from her standpoint, was justified by those views of life to which Mrs. Marshall had always adhered. She racked her head for something which would soften the blow. "If Elaine is going to work anywhere, Mrs. Marshall, she couldn’t be in a better place than Uncle John’s office. He’d be good to anybody, but, of course, he’d be especially interested in Elaine as long as she’s a friend of mine." "Young people nowadays," quavered Mrs. Marshall, her sense of injury goading her to injustice, "are not sufficiently mindful of what they owe the family name." Elaine’s flippant laugh jarred Peggy’s sense of propriety. She looked at her reproachfully, but Elaine would not meet her eye. "I suppose that’s because we have to think what we owe ourselves," she suggested airily. "Clothes and something to eat, to say nothing of carfare." "And don’t you think," asked Peggy, hurling herself into the breach, "that a girl who does hard things when she has to, and keeps brave and plucky about it, is a credit to any family? Seems to me that her ancestors, whoever they were, would have reason to be proud of her." There was a clarion ring in Peggy’s voice. Mrs. Marshall looked at her doubtfully, surprised that enthusiasm could be kindled over what to her mind was a disgrace. But Elaine’s expression betrayed a sense of guilt. "Don’t try to make a heroine of me, Peggy," she protested. "I’m not brave, nor plucky, nor anything of the kind. It’s only that I’ve got to have the money. If you think there’s any chance, let’s go to see your uncle right away before he gets anybody else." The process of bringing Mrs. Marshall to agree to this suggestion occupied some time. Suspecting the weakness of her arguments, the poor lady fell back on tears and reminiscences. The two girls listened to detailed accounts of the lavish expenditure that had prevailed in her father’s household, the big dinners, the imported gowns, the liveried coachman. "And to think that my child should be--getting a job," wailed Mrs. Marshall. "O, what would poor papa have said?" It was not so much, perhaps, that the girls’ arguments finally had effect, as that the violence of her emotion had reduced her to the point of exhaustion, which accounted for the fact that Elaine and Peggy were at last allowed to depart on their errand without protest.