She had to shake hands with him, but when he stooped down to kiss her, she jerked away and glared at him like an angry little cat.

"Why, Rosie!" Mrs. O'Brien exclaimed in shocked tones, "is that the way you treat a family friend like Mr. Harry?"

"Family friend!" stormed Rosie; "I've never laid eyes on him before and neither have you!"

Mrs. O'Brien's embarra.s.sment deepened. "Rosie, I'm ashamed of you! Is that the way for you to be treatin' a gentleman who's taking supper with us? I tell you frankly I'm ashamed of you!"

Jamie O'Brien cleared his throat. "See here, Maggie, Rosie's perfectly right. There's no call for her to be kissing a stranger. She's too big a girl for that."

Mrs. O'Brien looked at her husband blankly. "Jamie O'Brien, how you talk! Do you think it's becoming to call a man a stranger who's sitting down with you at your own table?"

Jamie turned to his guest politely. "I'm sure, Mr. Long, I don't know what all this noise is about. I'm like Rosie here. I've never seen you before to me knowledge. But that's neither here nor there. You're here now and you're welcome, and I hope we'll be friends. So let us drop the argument and sit down."

It was an awkward beginning, but Jamie refused to be embarra.s.sed and, after a moment of silence, the others tried hard to follow his example.

Harry was evidently bent on pleasing.

"Ever been in St. Louis, Mr. O'Brien?" He spoke with a proprietorial air as one might of a household pet, p.r.o.nouncing the name of his city Louie.

"Fine place, St. Louie!"

"For meself," Jamie answered unexpectedly, "I never much cared for it.

It's a hot hole!"

Ellen flushed. "Why, Dad!"

Jamie looked up impatiently. "What's the matter now?"

"Dad, don't you know that St. Louie is where Harry lives?"

"I do not!" Jamie answered truthfully. "And, if you ask me, Ellen, I don't see why I should."

"Jamie O'Brien!" Mrs. O'Brien gasped, "what's come over you? I haven't heard you talk so much at table in ten years!" She turned to her guest.

"Would you believe me, Harry, there are weeks on end when I never get a word out of him! Sometimes I think I'll forget how to talk meself for lack of some one to exchange a word with! And to think," she concluded, "that Jamie's been in St. Louie! I give you me word of honour I never heard that before! Tell me, Jamie, when was it?"

Jamie ruminated a moment. "It must have been before we were married."

Mrs. O'Brien nodded her head. "That just proves what I always say: little a woman can know about a man before she marries him."

She talked on and Harry gave her every encouragement, laughing heartily at her anecdotes, asking further details, and making himself so generally pleasant that, before supper was half done, the opening embarra.s.sment was forgotten and Mrs. O'Brien was exclaiming: "Well, Harry, I must say one thing: I feel like I'd known you forever!"

Harry glanced at Ellen. "Shall we tell them?"

Ellen drew a quick breath. "We've got to sometime," she murmured.

Harry beamed on Mrs. O'Brien. "I'm mighty glad to hear you say that, Mrs. O'Brien. There's nothing would please me better than to have you like me. In fact, I'm hoping you like me well enough to take me for a son-in-law!"

Mrs. O'Brien gasped: "What's this you're saying, Harry?"

Rosie, pale and tense, stood up. "Ellen," she said, looking straight at her sister, "have you told him about Jarge Riley?"

Ellen laughed a little unsteadily. "Yes, Rosie, I told him. And I see now you were right. It wasn't fair to Harry not to tell him. And I want to apologize for getting so mad."

"Yes, Rosie was right," Harry repeated, smiling at her kindly. "Rosie must have known I was dead gone on Ellen and meant business."

Rosie was not to be taken in by any such palaver as that. "No, Mr. Long, you're mistaken. I was only thinking about Jarge Riley. Ellen's going to marry him in the spring."

Harry still smiled at her ingratiatingly. "She's not going to marry him now, Rosie. She can't because, don't you see, she married me this afternoon!"

"What!" Rosie, feeling suddenly sick and weak, crumpled down into her chair, a nerveless little ma.s.s that gaped and blinked and waited for the world to come to an end.

There was a pause broken at last by an hysterical laugh from Ellen.

"Don't look at me like that, Rosie! I should think you'd be glad I was married to some one else!"

Ellen's words brought Rosie to her senses. "I am glad!" she cried. "You never cared two straws about Jarge, anyhow! But why did you have to be so crooked with him? When he finds out the way you've done this, it'll just break his heart! I guess I know!"

Jamie O'Brien cleared his throat. "Rosie, you talk too much! Will you just hold your tongue a minute while I find out what all this clatter's about. Mr. Long, sir, will you be so good as to explain things?"

There was no smile on Jamie's face and Harry, looking at him, seemed to realize that it was not a time for pleasantries.

"I hope, Mr. O'Brien," he began soberly, "that you'll forgive me for not taking things more slowly. I expected to until this morning when Ellen told me about this Riley fellow. Then I sort of lost my head. I was afraid of delays and misunderstandings. I've been just crazy about Ellen. The first time I saw her I knew she was the girl for me and I came to town today to tell her so. I suppose she knew what I was going to say and down at the shop, the very first thing, she began telling me about Riley. Mighty straight of her, I call it. She had got herself engaged to him but she didn't want to marry him, and it just seemed to me that the easiest way out of things was for us to get married right quick. So we hustled over the river and got to the courthouse just before closing time. It was really my fault, Mr. O'Brien. I made Ellen do it."

Jamie looked at Ellen thoughtfully. "I don't believe you'd have made her do it if she hadn't wanted to do it."

"You're right, Dad," Ellen said; "I did want to. I didn't know how little I cared about George or any one else until Harry came along.

George is good and kind and all that, but we'd never have made a team. I knew it perfectly well and I was wrong not to tell him so."

Jamie nodded his head. "You're right, Ellen. You've treated him pretty badly."

Her father's apparent blame of Ellen brought Mrs. O'Brien back to life and to speech. "Jamie O'Brien, I don't see how you can talk so about poor Ellen! You know yourself many's the time I've said to you, 'I can't see Ellen milkin' a cow.' For me own part I think she's wise to choose the life she has."

"Do you know the life she's chosen?" Jamie asked quietly. "I'm frank to say I don't." He turned to Harry. "Since you're me son-in-law, Mr. Long, perhaps you'll be willing to tell me who you are."

"Oh, Dad!" Ellen murmured, and Mrs. O'Brien whispered, "Why, Jamie!"

Harry flushed but answered promptly: "I'm twenty-six years old. I'm a St. Louie man. I'm a travelling salesman for the Great Ostrich Feather Company, head office at St. Louie. I'm on a twenty dollar a week salary with commissions that usually run me up to thirty dollars."

Harry paused and Jamie remarked: "Plenty for a single man. You might even have saved a bit on it, I'm thinking."

Harry hesitated. "No," he said slowly; "I'll tell you the truth. I've been kind of a fool about money. I haven't saved a cent."

Rosie sat up suddenly. "I knew it!" she cried.

"Rosie!" whispered Mrs. O'Brien. "Shame on you!"

"Well, I just did!" Rosie insisted.

Her father, paying no heed to her, went on with his catechism: "But even if you didn't save anything, I'm thinking with that salary you're not in debt."

"Dad!" murmured Ellen in an agony of embarra.s.sment.