Mrs. Belloc laughed. She was about thirty-five years old, though her eyes and her figure were younger than that. Her mouth was pleasant enough, but had lost some of its freshness. "Save money!" cried she. "I'd never have succeeded that way. I'd be there yet. I had never married--had two or three chances, but all from poor sticks looking for someone to support them. I saw myself getting old. I was looking years older than I do now. Talk about sea air for freshening a woman up--it isn't in it with the air of New York. Here's the town where women stay young. If I had come here five years ago I could almost try for the squab class." "Squab class?" queried Mildred. "Yes, squabs. Don't you see them around everywhere?--the women dressed like girls of sixteen to eighteen--and some of them are that, and younger. They go hopping and laughing about--and they seem to please the men and to have no end of a good time. Especially the oldish men. Oh, yes, you know a squab on sight--tight skirt, low shoes and silk stockings, cute pretty face, always laughing, hat set on rakishly and hair done to match, and always a big purse or bag--with a yellow-back or so in it--as a kind of a hint, I guess." Mildred had seen squabs. "I've envied them--in a way," said she. "Their parents seem to let them do about as they please." "Their parents don't know--or don't care. Sometimes it's one, sometimes the other. They travel in two sets. One is where they meet young fellows of their own class--the kind they'll probably marry, unless they happen to draw the capital prize. The other set they travel in--well, it's the older men they meet round the swell hotels and so on--the yellow-back men." "How queer!" exclaimed Mildred, before whose eyes a new world was opening. "But how do they--these--squabs--account for the money?" "How do a thousand and one women in this funny town account at home for money and things?" retorted Mrs. Belloc. "Nothing's easier. For instance, often these squabs do--or pretend to do--a little something in the way of work--a little canvassing or artists' model or anything you please. That helps them to explain at home--and also to make each of the yellow-back men think he's the only one and that he's being almost loved for himself alone." Mrs. Belloc laughed. Mildred was too astonished to laugh, and too interested--and too startled or shocked.