"Oh, those old jokes of Joe's," she said, affecting disdainful amusement. In fact, they were anything but jokes. On Mondays and Thursdays she used to attend a class for women who, like herself, wished to be "up-to-date on culture and all that sort of thing.

" They hired a teacher to cram them with odds and ends about art and politics and the "latest literature, heavy and light." On Tuesdays and Fridays she had an "indigent gentlewoman," whatever that may be, come to her to teach her how to converse and otherwise conduct herself according to the "standards of polite society." Joe used to give imitations of those conversation lessons that raised roars of laughter round the poker table, the louder because so many of the other men had wives with the same ambitions and the same methods of attaining them.

Mrs. Ball came back to the subject of Anita. "I am glad you are going to settle with such a charming girl.