"But you haven't distracted my mind," said Joan judicially, "from the fact that a young man of your acquaintance calls you 'Mrs.' without correction. You haven't eloped or anything lately?" Ellen Neal bridled. "How you do go on, Joan! It makes it look better for a lone woman to be livin' by herself if she's called 'Mrs.' Men ain't so apt to get fresh with her." "No?" murmured Joan. She gazed at Ellen's gaunt unloveliness with twinkling eyes. "Don't tell me men have been getting fresh with you, Nellen!" The other's jaw snapped. "They have not, and they better not try it." "Don't you think it's rather a risk darning their socks, then?" murmured the girl wickedly. "It might give them false ideas." "I only do it for one of 'em, and he pays me good. Anything's proper so long as you get paid for it." Joan laughed aloud. "Why, Mrs. Neal, Mrs. Neal, you shock me! What a perilous idea!" "You're awful smart, guyin' me, but I'd be ashamed to think the kind of thoughts you're thinkin' now," said Ellen Neal, unsmiling. "And you a spinster yourself! Thoughts are as bad as deeds, any day--worse, 'cause they come easier. That's one thing I've noticed about you lately, Joan. You seem to know about things that ain't ladylike, somehow. Something's happened to you, child. You ain't the nice little girl you used to be." "No," admitted Joan, "I'm not. And the world's not the nice little world it used to be, either." She went over and laid her head on her friend's bony shoulder. "Don't scold me to-day, dear. You're right, but--Oh, Nellen, father's lost our money! And there's nothing in the world I can call my own. Just absolutely nothing!" A silence fell. "So," said the old woman. "You've found out, at last, have you? I've wondered how long it would take. And now what you goin' to do about it?" she demanded suddenly. "Are you goin' to law?" Joan shook her head. "You know what Mother would say to that." Ellen sighed. "I suppose she wouldn't hear to it." It was a curious fact that when these two spoke of Mary Darcy, they always spoke as if she were still alive, and near them. "Anyway, you can't squeeze blood out of a turnip--though I must say I'd like to see _somethin'_ squeezed out of them kind of turnips, if it's only insides!" she added quite blood-thirstily. "Oh deary me, deary me! How often I've begged your ma to sneak what there was left out of his reach and put it away where I keep mine." "Where's that, Nellen?" "In an old stockin'-fut under my bedtick, where you can bet no man on earth ever laid eyes on it, or ever will!" The smell of scorching bread suddenly filled the room. "Land sakes, my cinnamon-rolls! And I'd promised that boy to save him some for breakfast." "Breakfast?" exclaimed Joan, glad enough of a diversion from discussing her undiscussable father. "You mean to tell me you're not only keeping your young man darned, but breakfasted? Nellen, I'm positively jealous!"