George was clumsily enthusiastic.  Gosh, if she would do that—­if she could stand its being a little quiet—­

“I’d get to know the neighbours, and we’d have real good times,” said Emeline optimistically, “and it would be grand for Julie!”

Julia had by this time gone off to sleep in the centre of the large bed.  Her mother removed the child’s shoes and some of her clothing, without rousing her, loosened her garters, and unbuttoned whatever buttons she could reach.

“She’ll be all right,” she said confidently.  “She never wakes.”

George lowered the gas, and they tiptoed out.  But Julie did waken half an hour later, as it happened, and screamed for company for ten hideous minutes.  Then Miss Flossie Miniver, a young woman who had recently rented the top floor, and of whom Emeline and the other ladies of the house disapproved, came downstairs and softly entered the Page flat, and gathered the sobbing little girl to her warm, soft breast.  Miss Miniver soothed her with a new stick of gum and a pincushion that looked like a fat little pink satin leg, with a smart boot at one end and a ruffle of lace at the other, and left Julia peacefully settled down to sleep.  But Julia did not remember anything of this in the morning, and the pincushion had rolled under the bed, so Emeline never knew of it.  She and George had a good dinner, and later went to the Orpheum, and were happier than they had been for a long time.

The next Sunday they went to Oakland to see Emeline’s sister, and possibly to begin househunting.  It was a cold, dark day, with a raw wind blowing.  Gulls dipped and screamed over the wake of the ferryboat that carried the Pages to Oakland, and after the warm cabin and the heated train, they all shivered miserably as they got out at the appointed corner.  Oakland looked bleak and dreary, the wind was blowing chaff and papers against fences and steps.

Emeline had rather lost sight of her sister for a year or two, and had last seen her in another and better house than the one which they presently identified by street and number.  The sisters had married at about the same time, but Ed Torney was a shiftless and unfortunate man, never steadily at work, and always mildly surprised at the discomfort of life.  May had four children, and was expecting a fifth.  Two of the older children, stupid-looking little blondes, with colds in their noses, and dirt showing under the fair hair, were playing in the dooryard of the shabby cottage now.  The gate hung loose, the ground was worn bare by children’s feet and dug into holes where children had burrowed, and littered with cans and ropes and boxes.