“I’d just as soon have a good job like Miss Fanny,” Martie said hardily.  “She gets sixty a month.”

“Well, I wouldn’t!” Sally protested in a sudden burst.  “Being in an office would kill me, I think!  I just couldn’t do it!  But I believe I could manage a little house, and children, and I’d like that!  I wouldn’t mind being poor—­I never really think of being anything else—­but what I’m so afraid of is that Len’ll marry and we’ll just be—­just be aunts!”

Such vehemence was not usual to Sally, and as her earnestness brought her to a full stop on the sidewalk, the two sisters found themselves facing each other.  They burst into a joyous laugh, as their eyes met, and the full absurdity of the conversation became apparent.

Still giggling, they went on their way, past the old smithy, where a pleasant breath of warmth and a splendid ringing of hammers came from the forge, and past the new garage of raw wood with the still-astonishing miracle of a “horseless carriage” in its big window, pots of paint and oil standing inside its door, and workmen, behind a barrier of barrels and planks, laying a cement sidewalk in front.  They passed the Five-and-Ten-Cent Store, its unwashed windows jammed with pyramids of dry-looking chocolates, post cards, and jewellery, and festoons of trashy embroidery, and the corner fruit stands heaped with tomatoes and sprawling grapes.  At the Palace Candy Store a Japanese boy in his shirt-sleeves was washing the show window, which was empty except for some rumpled sheets of sun-faded pink crepe paper.  By the door stood two large wooden buckets for packing ice cream.  The ice and salt were melted now, and the empty moulds, still oozing a little curdled pink cream, were floating in the dirty water.

“Why aren’t you girls at home sewing for the poor?” demanded a pleasant voice over their shoulders.  The girls wheeled about to smile into the eyes of Father Martin.  A tall spare old man, with enormous glasses on his twinkling blue eyes, spots and dust on his priestly black, and a few teeth missing from his kindly, big, homely mouth, he beamed upon them.

“Well, how are ye?  And your mother’s well?  Well, and what are ye buying—­trousseaux?”

“We’re just looking, Father,” Martie giggled.  “Looking for husbands first, and then clothes!”

Laughing, the girls walked with him across the street to Mallon’s Hardware Emporium, where baskets of jelly glasses were set out on the damp sidewalk, with enamel saucepans marked “29c.” and “19c.” in black paint, carpet sweepers, oil stoves, and pink-and-blue glass vases.  They went on to the shoe shop, to the grocery, to the post-office, past the express office, where Joe Hawkes sat whittling in the sun.  They paused to study with eager interest the flaring posters on the fences that announced the impending arrival of Poulson’s Star Stock Company, for one night only, in “The Sword of the King.”  They discovered with surprise that it was nearly twelve o’clock, bought five cents’ worth of rusty, sweet, Muscat grapes, to be eaten on the way home, and turned their faces toward the bridge.