“Oh, baby, don’t say that!”

“I—­me and Lester—­Lester and me were talking, mama—­when the engagement’s announced next week—­a reception—­”

“We can clear out this room, move the bed out of gramaw’s room into ours, and serve the ice-cream and cake in—­”

“Oh, mama, I don’t mean—­that!”

“What?”

“Who ever heard of having a reception here!  People won’t come from town ’way out to this old—­cabbage-patch.  Even Gertie Wolf, with their big house on West Pine Boulevard, had her reception at the Walsingham Hotel.  You—­We—­can’t expect Mark Haas and all the relations—­the Sinsheimers—­ and—­all to come out here.  I’d rather not have any.”

“But, Selene, everybody knows we ain’t millionaires, and that you got in with that crowd through being friends at school with Amy Rosen.  All the city salesmen and the boys on Washington Avenue, even Mark Haas himself, that time he was in the store with Lester, knows the way we live.  You don’t need to be ashamed of your little home, Selene, even if it ain’t on West Pine Boulevard.”

“It’ll be—­your last expense, mama.  The Walsingham, that’s where the girl that Lester Goldmark marries is expected to have her reception.”

“But, Selene, mama can’t afford nothing like that.”

Pink swam up into Miss Coblenz’s face, and above the sheer-white collar there was a little beating movement at the throat, as if something were fluttering within.

“I—­I’d just as soon not get married as—­as not to have it like other girls.”

“But, Selene—­”

“If I—­can’t have a trousseau like other girls and the things that go with marrying into a—­a family like Lester’s—­I—­then—­there’s no use.  I—­I can’t!  I—­wouldn’t!”

She was fumbling, now, for a handkerchief, against tears that were imminent.

“Why, baby, a girl couldn’t have a finer trousseau than the old linens back yet from Russia that me and gramaw got saved up for our girl—­linen that can’t be bought these days.  Bed-sheets that gramaw herself carried to the border, and—­”

“Oh, I know!  I knew you’d try to dump that stuff on me.  That old, worm-eaten stuff in gramaw’s chest.”

“It’s hand-woven, Selene, with—­”

“I wouldn’t have that yellow old stuff—­that old-fashioned junk—­if I didn’t have any trousseau.  If I can’t afford monogrammed up-to-date linens, like even Alma Yawitz, and a—­a pussy-willow-taffeta reception dress, I wouldn’t have any.  I wouldn’t.”  Her voice, crowded with passion and tears, rose to the crest of a sob.  “I—­I’d die first!”

“Selene, Selene, mama ’ain’t got the money.  If she had it, wouldn’t she be willing to take the very last penny to give her girl the kind of a wedding she wants?  A trousseau like Alma’s cost a thousand dollars, if it cost a cent.  Her table-napkins alone, they say, cost thirty-six dollars a dozen, un-monogrammed.  A reception at the Walsingham costs two hundred dollars, if it costs a cent.  Selene, mama will make for you every sacrifice she can afford, but she ’ain’t got the money!”