Kitabı oku: «The Rosie World», sayfa 15

CHAPTER XXXV
ELLEN MAKES AN ANNOUNCEMENT

The next morning at breakfast Ellen declared herself. She addressed her mother, but what she had to say was for the whole family.

"I just want to tell you, Ma, I'm done with stenography forever. 'Tain't my line and I know it and I should have known it long ago. Now you needn't argue because that's all there is about it."

Mrs. O'Brien looked at Ellen blankly. "Why – why, Ellen dear," she stammered, "what's this I hear you saying?"

Ellen repeated her announcement slowly and distinctly.

"But, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien protested, "how can you talk so and the beautiful way you've been getting on and the beautiful way Mr. Hawes has been treating you? And what will Mr. Hawes say – poor, kind-hearted gentleman that he is! Oh, Ellen dear, with your fine looks and your fine education I beg you not to throw it all away!"

Mrs. O'Brien mopped her eyes with her apron and pleaded on. It did not occur to her to ask the reason for Ellen's sudden decision. After all, sudden decisions were merely characteristic of Ellen. Terence, however, peered at his sister sharply.

"Huh! Seems to me stenography was all right yesterday! What's happened to make you change your mind? Did that Hawes fellow say something to you last night at the Island?"

Ellen had decided that the family were not to know the details of the previous night's adventure and, before they came down in the morning, she had pledged Rosie to secrecy. Yet some sort of explanation had to be offered. She looked at Terry now with a candour that was new to her and that did much to win his support.

"Terry," she began slowly, with none of her usual aggressiveness, "you always thought my going to that business college and trying to do office work was foolish. You've said so all along. I didn't use to believe you were right but I do now. I'd never do decent office work in a hundred years. I'm sorry all the money you and dad had to put up and I'll pay you back if I can."

"Gee!" murmured Terry in astonishment, "you sure must have got some blowing up to make you feel that way about it!"

"Well, that's the way I do feel," Ellen said quietly.

"But, Ellen," Mrs. O'Brien wailed, "you don't mean it – I know you don't! Why, what'll you do if you throw up this fine position with Mr. Hawes? Nowadays a girl can't sit at home and do nothing! She's either got to work or get married." Mrs. O'Brien paused with a new idea which her own words suggested to her. "Is it – is it that you're getting married?"

Ellen spoke quickly: "Ma, I expect to work and I'm going to work. But I'm going to do something I can do well."

"That you can do well!" echoed Mrs. O'Brien. "I don't rightly catch your meanin', Ellen. Here you've landed a fine position and your boss is a nice friendly gentleman and now you're turning your back on it all to take up something else! I don't understand you at all, at all! And to think," Mrs. O'Brien concluded brokenly, "of the skirts and shirtwaists that I've stayed up all hours of the night to iron for you, just to keep you lookin' sweet and clean down at that office!"

"Ma, I'm sorry to disappoint you – honest I am. But, don't you see, it's just this way: I've made a bad mistake and the sooner I get out of it the better it will be for me. What I ought to do is something I can do."

"Something you can do, indeed! And will you tell me, me lady, what is it you can do so much better than stenography?"

Ellen flushed but answered firmly: "I can trim hats."

"Trim hats!" screamed Mrs. O'Brien. "What's this ye're sayin'? Do you mean to tell me that you're willing to be a milliner when you might be a stenographer? Why, anybody at all can go and be a milliner!"

"Anybody can't be a fine milliner. And you needn't think there isn't good money in millinery. The head of a big millinery department gets a couple of thousand a year!"

Mrs. O'Brien blinked her eyes. "Has some one been offering you that kind of a position?" Her tears ceased to flow. Once again she beamed on Ellen with all her old-time pride. "Ah, Ellen, you rogue, you're keeping something back! Come, tell me what's happened!"

Ellen sighed helplessly. "Ma, I'm trying to tell you, but you make it awful hard for me. You go off every minute and don't give me a chance to finish."

Mrs. O'Brien folded her hands complacently. "Ellen dear, I won't utter another syllable – I promise you I won't. Now tell me in two words what's happened."

"Well, Ma, it's this: I'm through with stenography and I'm going in for millinery, which I think I can do better."

"But where, Ellen, where are you going in for it? That's the great p'int!"

"I'm going to try Hattie Graydon's aunt first. She always says that not one of the girls in her shop begins to have the taste that I've got, and one time she told me if ever I wanted a job to come to her."

The happy look in Mrs. O'Brien's face slowly faded. Tears again filled her eyes. "And is that all you've got to tell me?"

"Yes, Ma, that's all. I'm going down to see Miss Graydon this morning."

"Oh, Ellen, Ellen, to think of your doing a thing like that without asking the advice of a soul! You're a foolish, headstrong girl!"

Ellen dropped her eyes. "George Riley thinks I'm doing right."

Mrs. O'Brien looked up sharply.

"Jarge Riley indeed! And may I ask what Jarge Riley's got to with it?"

"George and me are friends again. I thought I better tell you."

In Mrs. O'Brien amazement took the place of grief. "Ellen O'Brien, do you mean to tell me that you've took up with Jarge Riley when you might have had a gentleman like Mr. Hawes?"

The flush that her mother's words excited was one of anger as well as embarrassment. "Ma, you listen to me: I've never once told you that I might have Mr. Hawes! You've made that up yourself!"

"Made it up myself, indeed! when he's been taking you out night after night and treating you like a real lady!"

"And what's more," Ellen went on vehemently, "George Riley's worth twenty Philip Hawses!"

Mrs. O'Brien looked at her sharply. "Is it that you're going to marry Jarge Riley?"

Ellen, breathing hard, made answer a little unsteadily: "Yes."

Mrs. O'Brien dropped back limply into her chair. "Mercy on us!" she wailed, "and is this the end of your fine looks and your fine education – to marry a farmer like Jarge Riley! Why, you could have had him without any business college or nothing!"

Ellen stood up and Mrs. O'Brien, her face woe-begone and tragic, made one last appeal: "Ellen O'Brien, I ask you in all seriousness, are you determined to throw yourself away like that?"

Ellen was nothing if not determined. "I'm going down to Miss Graydon's now," she said in a casual tone which ended all discussion; "and me and George will probably get married in the spring."

CHAPTER XXXVI
THE HAPPY LOVER

It was several days before Mrs. O'Brien regained her usual complacency. "'Tain't that I've got anything against you, Jarge," she explained many times to her prospective son-in-law. "I'm really fond of you and I treat you like one of me own. But what with her fine looks and her fine education I was expecting something better for Ellen. Why, Jarge, she ought to be marrying a Congressman at least. Now I ask you frankly, don't you think so yourself?"

For George the situation was far from a happy one. To be the confidant of Mrs. O'Brien in this particular disappointment was embarrassing, to say the least. Moreover, certain of Mrs. O'Brien's objections were somewhat difficult to meet and yet they had to be met and met often, for Mrs. O'Brien harped on them constantly.

"And, Jarge dear, if you do go marry her and carry her off to the country, what will you do with her out there? Tell me that, now! For meself I can't see Ellen milkin' a cow."

George tried hard to explain that milking cows was not the only activity open to a farmer's wife; that, in all probability, Ellen would never be called on to milk a cow. His protests were vain, for, to Mrs. O'Brien, milking a cow stood not so much for a definite occupation as for a general symbol of country life. George might talk an hour and very often did and, at the end of that time, Mrs. O'Brien would sigh mournfully and remark: "Say what you will, Jarge, I tell you one thing: I can't see Ellen milkin' a cow."

Moreover, life with Ellen was not at once the long sweet song that George had expected. Not that she was the old imperious Ellen of biting speech and quick temper. She was not. All that was passed. She was quiet now, and docile, anxious to please and always ready for anything he might suggest. Would she like a street-car ride tonight? Yes, a street-car ride would be very nice. Or the movies or a walk? She would like whatever he wanted. Her gentleness touched him but caused him disquiet, too, because he could not help realizing that a great part of it was apathy. One thing pleased her as much as another, which is pretty nearly the same as saying one thing bored her as much as another.

"But, Ellen," he protested more than once, "you don't have to go if you don't want to!"

"Oh, I want to," she would insist in tones that were far from convincing.

George could not help recalling the eager joy with which Rosie used to greet each new expedition. Why wasn't Ellen the same, he wondered in helpless perplexity. He went through all the little attentions which Rosie had taught him and a thousand more, and Ellen received them with a quiet, "Thanks," or a half-hearted, "You're awful kind, George."

"Kind nuthin'!" he shouted once. "I don't believe you care one straw for me or for anything I do for you!"

His outburst startled her and, for a moment, she faltered. Then she said: "I don't see how you can say that, George. I think you're just as good and kind as you can be."

"Good and kind!" he spluttered. "What do I care about being good and kind? What I want is love!"

"Well, don't I love you?" She looked at him beseechingly and put her hand on his shoulder. Her caresses were infrequent and this one, slight as it was, was enough to fire his blood and muddle his understanding.

"You do love me, don't you?" he begged, pulling her to him, and she, as usual, submitting without a protest, said, yes, she did.

A word, a touch, and Ellen could always silence any misgiving. But such misgivings had a way of returning, once George was alone. Then he would wish that he had Rosie to talk things over with. He was used to talking things over with Rosie. For some reason, though, he never saw Rosie now except for a moment when she handed him his supper-pail each evening at the cars. At other times she seemed always to be out on errands or on jaunts with Janet and Tom Sullivan. George looked upon Tom as a jolly decent youngster and he was pleased that the intimacy between him and Rosie was growing. But at the same time he could not help feeling a little hurt that Rosie should so completely forget him. True, he was bound up heart and soul in Ellen and now he was her accepted lover. That, it seemed to him, ought to be happiness enough and he told himself that it was enough. Then he would sigh and wonder why he wasn't as light-heartedly gay as he used to be when he and Rosie went about together. Rosie, apparently, had entirely forgotten what good chums they once had been. Well, after all, he couldn't blame her, for she was only a child.

George did not know and probably never would know that Rosie was watching him and watching over him with all the faithfulness of a little dog and that she knew all there was to know of the situation between him and Ellen.

George had set the latter part of September as the time for his return to the country. For four long years he had been working and saving for this very event. Several times before he had been about to leave but always, at the last moment, some untoward circumstance had crippled his finances and he had been forced to stay on in the city another few months. Now for the first time he could go and now he was loath to go. But he had made his announcement and all his little world was standing about, waiting to see him off and to bid him god-speed.

He was ashamed to acknowledge even to himself the indecision that was tugging at his heart. "Don't you think, Ellen," he ventured at last, "it might be just as well if I waited till Christmas?"

"Oh, George!" Ellen looked at him with a shocked expression. "I don't see how you can say such a thing after the way you've been waiting all these years! Besides, what would your poor mother say if you didn't come now that you could? You've told me yourself how the burden of things has fallen on her more and more and how anxious you are to relieve her."

"I know," George acknowledged; "but, Ellen girl, don't you see I can't bear to leave you now I've got you. I've had you for such a little while!"

"Won't you have me just the same, even if you are in the country? Besides, you'll be getting things ready for me by spring."

George took a sharp breath. "But I want you now!"

Ellen looked at him gravely. "See here, George, there's no use talking that way. You've got to work and I've got to work, and if we don't get our work done this winter it'll be all the worse for both of us when spring comes. Your father's expecting to hand over the management of the farm to you this fall and it's up to you to take it. Ain't I right?"

George sighed. "I suppose you are."

"Then don't be foolish. Besides you can come down and see me at Thanksgiving."

George gasped. "Why, Ellen, I expect to see you before that! I could come in and stay over Sunday 'most any week."

"No, George, you mustn't do that! I won't let you!" Ellen spoke vehemently. "It would only cost you money and you know perfectly well you need every cent of cash you've got! Once you're back in the country you won't be getting in three dollars a day ready money. No! You'll come to see me Thanksgiving and not before."

Ellen was right. It would be necessary for him to hoard like a miser his little stock of money until the farm should once again be on a paying basis.

George sighed gloomily and went about his preparations for departure.

CHAPTER XXXVII
THE SISTERS

Ellen and Rosie saw him off. Rosie wept openly.

"And, Jarge," she said, kissing him good-bye, "give your mother and your father my love, but especially your mother. Tell her that I love her and that I think of her every day. You won't forget, will you? And tell her that Geraldine is fat and well and has been ever since we got home from the country."

"Good-bye, George," Ellen said quietly. Her face was pale and there was a strained expression about eyes and mouth.

"Oh, Ellen!" George gave her one last wild kiss and rushed madly through the gate.

His coach was far down the train shed and Rosie and Ellen soon lost sight of his hurrying figure. They stood together at the gate and waited until the train started.

As it pulled away Ellen sighed deeply. "Thank goodness he's gone!" She leaned against the grating and laughed hysterically.

Rosie, who had been dabbing her eyes with a wet handkerchief, looked up blankly. "Ellen O'Brien, what do you mean? Are you glad he's gone?"

"You bet I'm glad!" Ellen's silly high-pitched laugh continued until silenced by Rosie's look of scornful fury.

"Ellen O'Brien, you're worse than I thought you were!"

Ellen faltered a moment, then reached toward Rosie appealingly. "Don't be too hard on me, Rosie. You don't know the awful time I've had. I feel like I've been dead. I haven't been able to breathe. I don't mean it was his fault. I think as much of him as you do – really I do. He's good and he's kind and he's honest and he's everything he ought to be. But if he'd ha' stayed much longer I'd ha' smothered."

Rosie, accusing angel and stern judge rolled into one, demanded gravely: "And now that he's gone what are you going to do?"

"What am I going to do?" Ellen's laugh was still a little beyond her control, but it had in it a note of happy relief that was unmistakable. "I'm going to live again – at least for the little time that's left me."

"What do you mean by 'the little time that's left you'?"

"From now till Thanksgiving; from Thanksgiving till spring." For an instant Ellen's face clouded. Then she cried: "But I'm not going to think of spring! I'm going to have my fling now!"

Rosie looked at her without speaking and, as she looked, it seemed to her that the Ellen of other days rose before her. It was as though a pale nun-like creature had been going about in Ellen's body, answering to Ellen's name. Now, at George's departure as at the touch of a magic wand, the old Ellen was back with eyes that sparkled once again and cheeks into which the colour was returning in waves. Yes, she was the old Ellen, eager for life and excitement and thirsting for admiration. But the old Ellen with a difference. Now, instead of estranging Rosie utterly with careless bravado, she strove to win her understanding.

"You don't know how I feel, Rosie; you can't, because you and me are made differently. You're perfectly happy if you've got some one to love and take care of – you know you are! With me it's different. I don't want to take care of people and work for them and slave for them. I want to have a good time myself! I'm just crazy about it! I know I ought to be ashamed, but can I help it? That's the way I am. Do you think I'm very awful, Rosie?"

Rosie answered truthfully: "I'm not thinking of you at all. I'm thinking of poor Jarge."

Ellen gave a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness I can give up thinking of him for a while." She began patting her hair and arranging her hat. "Do I look all right, Rosie? I got to hurry back to the shop. A feather salesman is coming today and Miss Graydon wants me to take care of him. He'll probably invite me out to lunch."

"And are you going?" Rosie asked slowly.

Ellen took a long happy breath. "You bet I'm going!"

"Ellen O'Brien, if you do, I'll tell Jarge! I will just as sure!"

For an instant Ellen was staggered. Then she recovered. "No, Rosie, you'll do no such thing! What you'll do is this: you'll mind your own business!"

Rosie tried to protest but her voice failed her, for the look in Ellen's eye betokened a will as strong as her own and a determination to brook no interference.

Ellen started off, then paused to repeat: "You'll mind your own business! Do you understand?"

Ellen walked on and Rosie called after her, a little wildly: "I won't! I won't! I tell you I won't!"

But she knew she would.

CHAPTER XXXVIII
ELLEN HAS HER FLING

It is hard to be the self-appointed guardian of another's interests, for one's standing is not, as it were, official. In the weeks that followed Rosie felt this keenly. She gave up protesting to Ellen, for Ellen's curt answer to everything she might say was always: "You mind your own business!" Though she would not accept Ellen's dictum that George's business was not hers, yet she was soon forced to give up direct action and to seek her end through the interference of others. She tried her mother.

"I don't care what you say, Ma, Ellen's just as crooked as she can be, acting this way with other fellows when she doesn't even deny that she's engaged to Jarge. And you ought to stop it, too! There, the very first week he was gone, she went out three nights hand-running with that feather man from St. Louis. You know she did! And now she's got that new little dude with an off eye and, besides, Larry Finn's come back. I tell you it ain't fair to Jarge and you're to blame, too, if you don't stop it!"

Mrs. O'Brien shared with Rosie the conviction that an engaged girl ought not so much as raise her eyes to other men. She was done forever with all men but one. Ellen, for some reason, did not feel this instinctively and, if a girl does not feel it instinctively, how is she to be made to feel it? Mrs. O'Brien sighed. Unknown to Rosie she had tried to speak to Ellen. Ellen had not let her go very far.

"Say, Ma, you dry up!" she had told her shortly. "I guess I know what I'm doing."

"I'm sure you do," Mrs. O'Brien had murmured in humble apology; "but, Ellen dear, be careful! There's a lot of people know you're engaged to Jarge and I'm afraid they'll be talkin'."

"Let 'em talk!" was Ellen's snappish answer.

So when Rosie approached her mother on the same subject, Mrs. O'Brien hemmed and hawed and ended by offering a defence of Ellen which sounded hollow even to herself. "As for that feather fella, Rosie dear, you mustn't get excited about him. It's a matter of business to keep him jollied. Miss Graydon wants Ellen to be nice to him. And, as I says to Ellen, 'If that's the case,' says I, 'of course you've got to accept his little attentions. Miss Graydon,' says I, 'is your employer and a girl ought always to please her employer.' As you know yourself, Rosie, Ellen's certainly getting on beautifully in that shop. Miss Graydon told me herself the other night that she had never had a girl so quick and tasty with her needle and when I told her about me own poor dead sister, Birdie, she said that explained it."

"But, Ma," Rosie cried, "what about poor Jarge?"

"Jarge? Why, Jarge is all right. He's out there in the country and you know yourself he's crazy about the country. And more than that, Ellen writes him a picture postcard every week. She gave me her word she'd do it. I couldn't very well insist on her writing a letter, for you know her long hours at the shop and it wouldn't be right to ask her to use her eyes at night. 'But, Ellen dear,' says I to her, 'promise me faithfully you'll never let a week go by without sending him a picture postcard.' And she gave me her word she wouldn't."

Mrs. O'Brien could always be depended on to obscure reason in a dust of words, especially at times when it would be embarrassing to face reason in the open. After three or four attempts to arouse her mother to some sort of action, Rosie had to give up. She felt as keenly as ever that George was being basely betrayed, but she saw no way to protect him. She had not written to him since he left, but she wrote every week to his mother on the pretext that Mrs. Riley was deeply interested in Geraldine and must be kept informed of Geraldine's growth and health. Rosie always put in a sentence about Ellen: "Ellen's very busy but very well," or "Ellen's hours are much longer now than they used to be and she hasn't so very much time to herself, but she likes millinery, so it's all right," – always something that would assure George of Ellen's well-being and excuse, if necessary, her silence. Rosie hated herself for thus apparently shielding Ellen but, in her anxiety to spare George, she would have gone to almost any length.

A sort of family pride kept her from confiding her worries to Janet McFadden. Soon after George's departure she had remarked to Janet: "You oughtn't to be surprised because you know the kind of girl Ellen is. She's just got to amuse herself. Besides, you can't exactly blame her because poor Jarge'd want her to have a good time." This attitude had not in the least deceived Janet, but Janet was too tactful to question it.

The reasons for not talking to Janet did not apply to Danny Agin, who, being old and of another generation, was philosophical rather than personal and had long since mastered the art of forgetting confidences when forgetting was more graceful than remembering. So at last Rosie opened her heart to Danny.

"Now take an engaged girl, Danny."

Rosie paused and Danny, nodding his head, said: "For instance, a girl like Ellen."

Rosie was glad enough to be definite. "I don't mind telling you, Danny, that it's Ellen I'm talking about. I just don't know what to do about it and maybe you'll be able to help me."

Danny listened carefully while Rosie slowly unfolded her story. "And, Danny," she said, as she reached the present in her narrative, "that St. Louis fellow's just dead gone on her – that's all there is about it. He's sending her picture postcards every day or every other day. I can't help knowing because they come to the house. I suppose he doesn't like to send them to the shop where the other girls would see them. He used to sign the postcards with his full name but now he only signs 'Harry.' Now, Danny, do you think it's nice for a girl that's engaged to let another fella send her postcards and sign 'em 'Harry'?"

Danny ruminated a moment. "Well, if you ask me, Rosie, I don't believe that's so awful bad."

"But, Danny, that ain't all! Listen here: last week he sent a big box of candy from Cleveland and this morning another box came from Pittsburg. And there was a postcard this morning and what do you think it said? 'I just can't wait till Saturday night!' And it was signed, 'With love, Harry.' Now, Danny, what can that mean? I bet anything he's coming to spend Sunday with her and, if he does come, what in the world am I to do about it?"

Danny patted her hand gently. "Rosie dear, I don't see that you're to do anything about it. Why do you want to do anything? Isn't it Ellen's little party?"

Rosie shook off his hand impatiently. "I don't care about Ellen's side of it! I'm thinking about Jarge! This kind of thing ain't square to him, and that's all there is about it!"

"Of course it ain't," Danny agreed. "But, after all, Rosie, if Ellen prefers Harry to Jarge, I don't see what we can do about it."

"But, Danny, she's engaged to Jarge!"

"Well, maybe she'll get disengaged."

Rosie shook her head. "You don't know Jarge. Jarge is a fighter. And I'll tell you something else: once he gets a thing he never gives it up. Now he's got Ellen or he thinks he's got her and he's going to keep her, too. You just ought to see him when he's around Ellen. He's awful, Danny, honest he is! He's so crazy about her that he forgets everything else. If he thought she was fooling him, I think he might kill her – really, Danny. And she's afraid of him, too. Why, if she wasn't afraid of him, she'd break her engagement in a minute and tell him so. I know that as well as I know anything. She expects to marry him. She's scared not to now. But that don't keep her from letting those other fellows act the fool with her. And if Jarge hears about them, I tell you one thing: there's going to be the deuce to pay. Excuse the language, Danny, but it's true."

Danny was impressed but not as impressed as Rosie expected. "That's worse than I thought," he admitted; "but I don't see that there's any great danger. Jarge is in the country and not likely to pop in on her, is he?"

"No," Rosie answered, "he's not coming till Thanksgiving."

"Thanksgiving, do you say? Well, that's four weeks off. Plenty of things can happen in four weeks."

In spite of herself, Rosie began to feel reassured. "But, Danny," she insisted, "even if it's not dangerous, don't you think it's crooked for a girl that's engaged to let other men give her presents and take her out?"

"Maybe it is and maybe it ain't. I dunno. It's hard to make a rule about it. You see it's this way, Rosie: When a girl's engaged she's usually in love with the fella she's engaged to, or why is she engaged to him? Now, when she's in love, she don't want presents from any but one man. Presents from other fellas don't interest her. So, you see, there's no need to be makin' a rule, for the thing settles itself. Now if Ellen is getting presents from this new fella, Harry, it looks to me like she ain't very much in love with Jarge."

"That's exactly what I'm telling you, Danny. She's not."

"So the likelihood is, she's not going to marry Jarge." Danny concluded with a smile that was intended to cheer Rosie.

"I wish she wasn't," Rosie murmured. Then she added hastily: "No, I don't mean that, because it would break Jarge's heart!"

Danny scoffed: "Break Jarge's heart, indeed! Many a young hothead before Jarge has had a broken heart and got over it!"

"But, Danny," Rosie wailed, "you don't know Jarge!"

There were such depths of tenderness in Rosie's tone that Danny checked the smile which was on his lips and made the hearty declaration: "He sure is a fine lad, this same Jarge!"

"Well, Danny, listen here: if Harry comes on Saturday, shall I tell Jarge?"

Danny looked at her kindly. "Mercy on us, Rosie, what a worryin' little hen you are! If you ask me advice, I'd say: Let Saturday take care of itself."

Rosie wiped her eyes slowly. "It's all very well for you to talk that way. But I tell you one thing: if Jarge was your dear friend like he's mine, you wouldn't want to stand by and see this Harry fella cut him out."

Danny gave a non-committal sigh and looked away. "I don't know about that, Rosie. I think it might be an awful good thing for Jarge if Harry did cut him out."

"But, Danny," Rosie cried, "think how it would hurt Jarge!"

Danny's answer was unfeeling. "There's worse things can happen to a man than being hurt."

Rosie's manner stiffened perceptibly. "Very well, Mr. Agin, if that's how you feel about it, I guess I better be going."

"Ah, don't go yet," Danny begged.

Rosie, already started, turned back long enough to say, with frigid politeness: "Good-bye, Mr. Agin."

At the gate, her heart misgave her. Danny, after all, had spoken according to his lights. It was not his fault so much as his limitation that he should judge George Riley by the standard of other young men. Rosie would be magnanimous.

"I got to go anyhow, Danny," she called back sweetly.

Danny's chuckle reached her faintly. "But you're coming again, Rosie dear, aren't you? You know I'll be wanting to hear about Saturday."

Danny was old and half sick, so Rosie felt she must be patient. "All right," she sang out; "I'll come."