So, then—"Places you?" Mrs. Payson had echoed uneasily, at dinner.
"For beginning practical experience. We learn the business from the ground up as an engineer does, or an interne. I've just heard to-day they've placed me at Shield's, in the blouses. I'm to start Monday."
"You don't say!" exclaimed Henry Kemp, at once amused and pleased. He could not resist treating Charley and her job as a rare joke. "Saleswoman, I suppose, to begin with. Clerk, h'm? Say, Charley, I'm coming in and ask about——"
"Clerk?" repeated Mrs. Payson, almost feebly for her. She saw herself sliding around corners and fleeing up aisles to avoid Shield's blouse section so that her grandchild need not approach her with a softly insinuating "Is there something, Madam?"
"Saleswoman! I should say not!" Charley grinned at their ignorance. "No—no gravy, thanks—" to Hulda at her elbow. Charley ate like an athlete in training, avoiding gravies, pastries, sweets. Her skin was a rose-petal. "I'm to start in Monday as stock-girl—if I'm in luck."
Mrs. Payson pushed her plate aside sharply as Henry Kemp threw back his head and roared. "Belle! Henry, stop that laughing! It's no laughing matter. No grandchild of mine is going to be allowed to run up and down Shield's blouse department as a stock-girl. The idea! Stock——"
"Now, now Mother Payson," interrupted Henry, soothingly, as he supposed, "you didn't expect them to start Charley in as foreign buyer did you?"
Belle raised her eyebrows together with her voice. "The thing Charley's doing is considered very smart nowadays, mother. That Emery girl who has just finished at Vassar is in the veilings at Farson's, and if ever there was a patrician-looking girl—Henry dear, please don't take another helping of potatoes. You told me to stop you if you tried. Well, then, have some more chicken. That won't hurt your waistline."
"Why can't girls stay home?" Mrs. Payson demanded. "It's all very well if you have to go out into the world, as I did. I was unfortunate and I had the strength to meet my trial. But when there's no rhyme nor reason for it, I do declare! Surely there's enough for you at home. Look at Lottie! What would I do without her!"
Lottie smiled up at her mother then. It was not often that Mrs. Payson unbent in her public praise.