“But, mommy, is it any fun for a girl to keep taking trips like that with—­with her mother always at home like a servant?  What do people think?  Every holiday that Vetsy asks me, you—­you back out.  I—­I won’t go without you, mommy, and—­and I want to go, ma, I—­I want to!”

“My Easter dinner and—­”

“You, Mrs. Kaufman, with your Easter dinner!  Ruby’s right.  When your mama don’t go this time not one step we go by ourselves—­ain’t it?”

“Not a step.”

“But—­”

“To-morrow, Mrs. Kaufman, we catch that one-ten train.  Twelve o’clock I call in for you.  Put ginger in your mama, Ruby, and we’ll open her eyes on the boardwalk—­not?”

“Oh, Vetsy!”

He smiled, regarding her.

Tears had fallen and dried on Mrs. Kaufman’s cheeks; she wavered between a hysteria of tears and laughter.

“I—­children—­” She succumbed to tears, daubing her eyes shamefacedly.

He rose kindly.  “Say, when such a little thing can upset her it’s high time she took for herself a little rest.  If she backs out, we string her up by the thumbs—­not, Ruby?”

“We’re going, ma.  Going!  You’ll love the Markovitchs’ hotel, ma dearie, right near the boardwalk, and the grandest glassed-in porch and—­and chairs, and—­and nooks, and things.  Ain’t they, Vetsy?”

“Yes, you little Ruby, you,” he said, regarding her with warm, insinuating eyes, even crinkling an eyelid in a wink.

She did not return the glance, but caught her cheeks in the vise of her hands as if to stem the too quick flush.  “Now you—­you quit!” she cried, flashing her back upon him in quick pink confusion.

“She gets mad yet,” he said, his shoulders rising and falling in silent laughter.

“Don’t!”

“Well,” he said, clicking the door softly after him, “good night and sleep tight.”

“’Night, Vetsy.”

Upon the click of that door Mrs. Kaufman leaned softly forward in her chair, speaking through a scratch in her throat.  “Ruby!”

With her flush still high, Miss Kaufman danced over toward her parent, then as suddenly ebbed in spirit, the color going.  “Why, mommy, what—­what you crying for, dearie?  Why, there’s nothing to cry for, dearie, that we’re going off on a toot to-morrow.  Honest, dearie, like Vetsy says, you’re all nerves.  I bet from the way Suss hollered at you to-day about her extra milk you’re upset yet.  Wouldn’t I give her a piece of my mind, though!  Here, move your chair, mommy, and let me pull down the bed.”

“I—­I’m all right, baby.  Only I just tell you it’s enough to make anybody cry we should have a friend like we got in Vetsburg.  I—­I tell you, baby, they just don’t come better than him.  Not, baby?  Don’t be ashamed to say so to mama.”

“I ain’t, mama!  And, honest, his—­his whole family is just that way.  Sweet-like and generous.  Wait till you see the way his sister and brother-in-law will treat us at the hotel to-morrow.  And—­and Leo, too.”