can I," she resumed, "how can I say Italian Tom when Ginny is his name? Everybody says Ginny Tom. They're so poor off I can't play with them even—so poor off Laurie drives um away—so poor off you scold me if I talk with um on the street. They've got a motor-car!"
"Sara," Alice remarked seriously, "you know very well that I don't let you play with these Italian children, not because they're foreigners, not because they're poor—it's because their manners are bad. I've told you before."
"Laurie says it's nits and language. Oh, gee, you ought to hear it! Oh, Mother, it's the funniest thing. Every time Robert passes Tom by he gets his goat a little bit—shies a stick at him or something just so he can hear his language. Oh, it's the funniest thing how he swears—and he's so little! I laugh!"
It was one of those times when a moralist finds herself dumb. Sara was unconscious of her mother's displeasure. Her conversation glided along as serenely as a swift little boat before a summer breeze.
"Why, when Tom's father has a motor-car, can't we have one? They're more poor than we're poor—so poor you won't let me play with um."
Alice gave her child a swift glance to see if this statement had been made for the purpose of infuriation. But in Sara's face was candid innocence. Alice gave it up.
"Sara," she said earnestly, "Tom's father spent all his savings for a motor-car because he's had very little pleasure all his life and so has his wife. She's brought up all those children, and mends and scrubs, and has no maid and no new clothes, and now she's got a little bit of pleasure for the first time."
"Well," said Sara brightly, as one who comes up with treasure-trove, "why don't we use our saves, and why
