"Girls don't need so much brains. I always say it scares the men off. Look at Gussie Graudenheimer—high school she had to have yet! What good does it do? Not a thing does that girl have—and her mother worries enough about it, too."
"That's what Marcus says about her—he says she's too smart for him; he says he'd rather have a girl nice and sweet than too smart."
Mrs. Katzenstein leaned her broom in a corner, daubed at the mantelpiece with a flannel cloth, and regarded her daughter surreptitiously through the mirror.
"You had a nice time with Marcus last night? You've been out with him five times and still have nothing to say."
"What's there to say, mamma? He's a fine boy and shows a girl a grand time. Last night it was sleeting just a little, and he had to have a taxi-cab. Honest, it was a shame for the money! Take it from me, Morris Adler walked Tekla. I saw them going to the Subway."
"Well, what's what? Is that the end of it?"
"Aw, mamma, how should I know? I can't read a fellow's mind! All I know is he—he's coming over to-night."
"Don't you bother with putting those slippers away, Birdie; you just lie round and take it easy this morning. When a girl's going to have company in the evening she should rest up—me and Tillie can do this little work."
Birdie wrapped herself in a crimson kimono plentifully splotched with large pink and blue and red and green chrysanthemums and snuggled into a white wicker rocking-chair. Her lips, warmly curved like a child's, were parted in a smile.
"I don't want breakfast," she announced. "Irma Friedman quit it and lost five pounds in two weeks."