That lady waved a reassuring hand. "Oh, the ball was all right this year—perfectly nice and decent. Ellen found out about it beforehand. Not like last year! No drunks was to be allowed on the floor and none of them disgraceful dances. Oh, if it had been like last year, I'd never have consented to Ellen's going! You know that, Rosie!"
"Huh!" grunted Terry.
His mother paid no heed to him. "As I was saying, Rosie, the night before the ball, Larry had to come excusing himself because they had just told him he would have to stay working till all hours the next night. So there was poor Ellen, who might have had her pick a week or two earlier, left high and dry at the last moment. I tell you, Rosie, it would have wrung your heart to see the poor girl's disappointment. A girl of less spirit would have given up, but not Ellen. Ellen was going to that ball and you know how firm Ellen is once she makes up her mind. So she just asked Jarge Riley to take her."
"Ma! Do you mean to say she had the cheek to ask poor Jarge after the way she's been treating him all these months!"
"Ah, ah, don't look at me that way, Rosie! Of course I mean it. Why shouldn't she ask him? He's a nice fella and, besides that, he's a friend of the family."
"Say, Terry, what do you know about that?" Rosie appealed to her brother sure that he, at least, would understand the humiliation she felt both at Ellen's manœuvre and at their mother's calm acceptance of it.
Terry did understand and gave her the sympathy of a quick nod and a short laugh. "What do you expect? You know Ellen."
"Well, all I got to say is: it's a shame!" Tears of indignation stood in Rosie's eyes. "She treats him like a dog and then, when it suits her, she makes use of him. It's an outrage—that's what it is! I suppose he went, of course. Poor Jarge is so easy."
Mrs. O'Brien nodded her head. "Sure he went. He didn't want to at first because he didn't like Ellen mixing up with the Twirlers. When she insisted, he said, all right, he'd go."
"Is that all?" Rosie asked.