"I always say to Mr. Katzenstein we ain't such high-fliers, but we are steady. Try some of that pickled herring, Mrs. Gump. I put it up myself."
"I guess you heard of Stella Loeb's engagement, Birdie, didn't you?" inquired Mrs. Mince, spreading the grape-jelly atop a finger-roll. "To a Mr. Steinfeld from Cleveland."
"Yes, I hear she's doing grand; but so is he. To get in with the Loeb Brothers' crowd ain't so bad."
"Yes, they're all grand matches!" exclaimed Mrs. Ginsburg. "It's just like Meena says; they're all gold pocket-book and automobile matches when they're with out-of-town men; but Cleveland--I don't wish it to her to live in Cleveland--not that I've ever been there, but I don't envy girls that marry out of New York."
"My Ray's got it grand in Kansas City! I wish you could see her closet room and her pantry--as big as my whole kitchen! A girl could do worse than Kansas City or Cleveland."
"I always say," remarked Birdie, "when I get engaged it makes no difference where he goes."
"That's the right way to feel, Miss Birdie. Some day, if Marcus should ever marry--and I'm the last one to stand in his way--if he gets his promotion to the Newark factories and the girl he picks out don't like Newark, then she's not the right girl," said Mrs. Gump.
"Newark," said Mrs. Katzenstein, "is a grand little town. Whenever we pass through on our way to Kansas City Birdie always says what a sweet little town it is. Mrs. Silverman, have another cup of coffee."
The short winter day sloughed off suddenly, and it was dark when they rose from the table. "So late!" exclaimed Mrs. Mince. "I got a girl that can't so much as put on the potatoes. Honest, the servant problem gets woise and woise."
"Sh-h-h!" cautioned Mrs. Katzenstein, placing her forefinger across her lips and glancing warningly toward the kitchen. "Tillie," she whispered, "ain't such a jewel neither; but she's honest, and I'm glad enough to have anybody these days. Birdie, she's always fussing with me because I do too much in the kitchen; but why should my husband have his coffee so it don't suit him? Children don't understand--they're too much for style."
"In my little flat, with Etta married and gone," chimed in Mrs. Adler, "I'm better off without a girl. I got a woman to come in and clean three times a week, and me and Ike go out for our supper. I got it better without the worry of a girl."
"I give you right. If I'd listen to Marcus I'd keep a servant, too--a servant when I got my troubles without one!"
"Ain't that jus' like papa, Birdie? He always says: 'Salcha, you take it easy now; when one girl isn't enough keep two'--as if I didn't have enough troubles already!"
"Good-by, Mrs. Katzenstein!" Mrs. Kronfeldt inserted a tissue-paper-wrapped package carefully within her muff. "You got good taste in prizes--salts and peppers always come in handy."
"That's the way me and Birdie felt when we picked them out--you can't have too many of them."
"And, Birdie, you come over with your mamma some afternoon when Ruby's home. That girl with her society and engagements--I never see her myself! This afternoon she saw vaudeville with Sol Littleberger. He's in off the road."
"Birdie had an engagement this afternoon, too, with a traveling-man; but I always like to have her home when I entertain."
"I had a lovely afternoon, Mrs. Katzenstein. You and Miss Birdie must come and see me--One Hundred and Forty-first Street ain't so far away that you can't get to us."
"Me and Birdie can come almost any afternoon, Mrs. Gump, except Saturday we go to the matinee--we're great ones for Saturday matinee."
"That's what I call too bad! On Saturday Marcus comes home early, and he could see you home."
"Well," said Mrs. Katzenstein, plucking a thread off Mrs. Gump's coat-sleeve, "it's not like there weren't plenty more Saturdays in the year. I got enough vaudeville shows this year anyway."
"After the third number I always say, 'Mamma, let's go!'--don't I, mamma?" said Birdie.
"We can come next Saturday, all right, Mrs. Gump; but mind, don't you go to any trouble for us--Birdie's on a diet, and all I want is a cup of coffee. It makes my husband so mad when I come home and got no appetite."
"Good-by, Mrs. Ginsburg. _Ach_, that's right--I forgot; Birdie, write down Maggie's address for Mrs. Ginsburg. You try her once. She brings home the clothes so white it's a pleasure to put them away. Tell her I recommended her. I wish you could see Birdie's shirt-waists come home from the wash--just like new!"
"I'll try her next week," said Mrs. Ginsburg, buckling her fur neckpiece.
"Give Adolph my love, Batta. Birdie, help Aunt Batta with her coat. Come over some evening soon. Good-by, ladies! Come again. Good-by! Be careful of that step there, Mrs. Gump. Good-by!"
Mrs. Katzenstein clicked the door softly shut and turned to her daughter. There were high red spots on her cheeks.
"Well," she sighed, "I'm glad that's over."
"Me, too; and I'm sorry enough that Mrs. Gump didn't win those salt-cellars."
"Such a grand woman as she is--plain and unassuming! He left her real comfortable, too--not much, but enough for herself. But, to look at her in that plain black dress, you wouldn't think that she had a son that might be made manager of the Loeb factory, would you?"
"It is so," agreed Birdie, nibbling from a half-emptied candy-dish on one of the tables; "and that's just the way with Marcus last night--it was only accident that he let out that him and Louis Epstein might have an automobile."
"Plain and unassuming people!" Mrs. Katzenstein exclaimed.
"I says to him when we were in the taxi, I says: 'Automobile-riding sure is grand!' Then he says: 'If something I'm hoping for happens in a couple of days, me and Louis Epstein are going to buy one of those five-hundred-dollar roadsters together. Then we can have a swell time together, Birdie!' Just like that he said it."
"You're a good girl, Birdie, and you deserve the best. To-night you wear your blue. Tillie, come in and set the chairs straight--nice--Miss Birdie's going to have company. How that Mrs. Ginsburg got on my nerves, I can't tell you, with her Meena and her brag!"
"I should say so!"
* * * * *
At eight o'clock Birdie again posed before her mirror. Her robin's-egg-blue dress where it fell away from her rather splendid and carefully powdered chest was spangled with small sequins, which glinted like stars. There was a corresponding galaxy of spangles arranged bandeau-fashion in her hair. The Blessed Damozel, when she leaned out from the golden bar of Heaven, wore seven significant stars in her hair. Birdie also wore stars in her hair, in her eyes, and in her heart and on her bosom.
"I think this dress makes me look grand and thin, mamma."
"It cost enough."
"Do you like those silver spangles in my hair? That's the way Bella Block wore hers at the theater the other night."
"I don't believe in such fussiness for girls! Your mother before you didn't have it. If you want you can wear my diamond bow-knot. Have Tillie come in and pin it on you with the safety-catch. I'm so nervous like a cat!"
"What are you so nervous about, mamma?"
"Say, Birdie, you know I'm the last one to talk about such things--but the Gumps don't start things without intentions. Flora told me herself that Ben Gump got engaged to her sister the second time he called."
"Aw, mamma!"
"Believe me, if it should come to us we got no cause to complain. Grand prospects! Grand boy! And what more do you want? Papa and me, with such a son-in-law, can enjoy our old age."
"Such talk!"
"You think I let on to anybody! All I say is to you; but a girl needs advice from her parents. Look at your sister Ray--she was a smart and sensible girl."
"Abe, with his stuttering and all!"
"Just the same he is a good husband to her and makes her a good living. You think she would have got him if she hadn't fixed things for herself--kind of! Believe me, it was hard enough for us, then, before papa went into petticoats."
"She can have him!"
"I always say Ray was a smart girl. She wasn't no beauty, and the chances didn't come so thick; and now to walk in her house you wouldn't think she did the courting! A more devoted boy than Abe I don't know."
"Do you like that bow at the belt, mamma?"
"Yes.... Tillie," called Mrs. Katzenstein, raising her voice, "turn on the lights in the parlor, and then tell Mr. Katzenstein I said to put on his coat."
"I don't want the lights on, mamma--it looks better that way."
"You want it to look like we was stingy with light yet! How does that look--just the gas-logs going! You tell Mr. Katzenstein, Tillie, that I insist that he should put on his coat to meet Birdie's company--his newspaper will keep. There's the bell! Tillie, go to the door."
After a well-timed interval Birdie entered the soft-lighted parlor; the gas-logs gave out a mellow but uncertain light. It was as if the spirit of fire were doing an elf dance about the room--glinting on the polished surface of the floor, glancing on and off the gilt frame of a wall-picture, and gleaming at its own reflection in the mahogany table-legs and glass doors of the curio cabinet.