Kern's heart thrilled. She was a woman, and hence the mother of all men. And this, of course, was the moment to introduce quite simply, the subject of the Genuine Mouldform Garments like the pixtures in the magazines, $15, rejuiced from as high as $28.50, and would look, oh, so fine and stylish long after the Prince serge had worn slick and faded....
"But I thought you spoke of the Prince as something especially fine," said Mr. V.V., with rather a long face for the way expenses seemed to be mounting up.
"Fine for on'y a carpenter, oh, yes," said Kern, "but not hardly what you'd recmend to a doctor, oh, no."
The young man said ruefully that perhaps he had better investigate the One-Price bargains, before Jem Noonan gobbled them all up. Then his eyes rested on Kern across the table, and the light of enterprise died out of them....
To take this child away from the Heth Works would be easy, indeed, but what to do with her then? That was a question which money could not answer. Kern's education had stopped at twelve. She was nineteen years old, born to work, and qualified to do nothing in the world but make cheroots.
After all, could anything more suitable happen to her than that she should take a fancy to Jem Noonan, the upstanding, square-jawed, taciturn youth who had appeared at the Dabney House in his Sunday blacks one night in May, and had reappeared regularly once a week since? Noonan was master of his trade at twenty-one, a lodge man, an attendant at ward meetings, and laying by money to embark as a contractor; he bade fair to be a power some day. And, though he seemed to be almost completely dumb, there must be something uncommon in him that he should be so drawn to the gay, dreaming little creature who was so clearly made of other clay than his....
"I haven't seen Jem for some time," said the doctor aloud, casually. "How are you and he getting on these days?"
Kern gave an impish little exclamation: she never liked for Mr. V.V. to mention Jem.
"Him and me mostly get off!... Him and I mostly get off...."
And then she giggled briefly, and sprang up with eyes too bright and went skipping and kicking for the detached kitchen to see if there was any hot lightbread.