Joe sat up.
"Have they found you out? Do they come to you?"
"They do—especially the young wives with their troubles. All of them troubled over their husbands and their children. We have the finest talks together. They're a splendid lot!"
"Who's come, in particular?"
"Well, there's one who isn't married—one of the best of them."
"Not Sally Heffer!"
"The same!"
"I'm dinged!"
"That girl," said Joe's mother, "has all sorts of possibilities—and she's brave and strong and true. Sally's a wonder! a new kind of woman!"
A new kind of woman! Joe remembered the phrase, and in the end admitted that it was true. Sally was of the new breed; she represented the new emancipation; the exodus of woman from the home to the battle-fields of the world; the willingness to fight in the open, shoulder to shoulder with men; the advance of a sex that now demanded a broader, freer life, a new health, a home built up on comradeship and economic freedom. In all of these things she contrasted sharply with Myra, and Joe always thought of the two together.