"No, it wouldn't. I'd say I was a widow. I'd say----" "Think o' your pop," sobbed Mrs. Denbigh. "Why, he'd--he'd kill you, Mary!" The mother shivered as she considered the wrath of the giant, whom hard work had hardened past the touch of all the tenderer emotions. "He'd just beat you up an' throw you into the street for everybody to see!" She half rose in a new anxiety. "Why, he's on the early shift, an' he might come here 'most any minute. Etta might come in, an' Sallie'll be back from school soon." "But, mom," Mary blindly persisted. "I'd work so hard! I wouldn't never be cross. I'd help you. I'd do all the housework, an' you could teach me to cook the way you do." "We got to think o' Sallie yet," continued Mrs. Denbigh. "Every time she gets mad now she says she'll run away like you done. We got to think o' her. She's a growin' girl, an' what'd it be to have you around her?" "But, mom, I won't hurt her. Can't I just stay an' work, an' wash dishes, an' such things? I wouldn't mind washin' dishes"--Mary smiled wanly--"like I once did." "An' then there's Etta," said the mother, still busied in her own confusion. "She's got a baby----" "A baby!" Mary's heart leaped. "Such a lovely baby girl----" "Can't I----? Oh, mom, can't I just get a peep at it?" "How could you?--An' we have to think what it'd be for her if you was here an' she growed up." The prodigal choked with tears. "Mom, mom!" she pleaded. "How'd I hurt 'em? You don't think I'd----?" "The town'd think so, an' the town'd tell 'em so, too. An' anyways, Mary, we're poor, we're dreadful poor. The mill was shut down all summer an' fall. It's only just started a'ready, an' it's only workin' half-time now. We ain't had money fer months still, an' now it all goes fer old bills. We couldn't do it, even if we wanted to." For half an hour more Mary begged, but she begged in vain; and though the mother ended by another attack of tears, and though the two wept together in each other's arms, they knew that they were together for the last time. "Your clothes are so thin!" quavered Mrs. Denbigh, with a pathetic endeavor to sink her grief in practical anxiety. "You ain't got no coat, an' your feet are near on the ground still." Mrs. Denbigh had no money; there was literally not a cent in the house; but she unearthed from an old trunk, and pressed, for pawning, upon Mary, a heavy, old-fashioned gold bracelet, which had been a wedding-present; and, though the daughter protested that she had money enough to buy some clothes, the mother got her own coat upon the daughter's shoulders. They were still standing in the kitchen, as women awaiting the summons of death, when first one steam-whistle and then another began to call across the town. It was noon, and the moment of puddler Denbigh's return.