ur husband ain't my kind," he stammered.
"He's all right--a good fellow, and he seems to make you happy--but I
don't much believe in mixing up families."

"What will you do?"

And after further embarrassment, Horatio confessed with a red face,--

"Perhaps I'll get married myself soon."

"Papa--you don't mean it!" Milly exclaimed, rather shocked, and inclined
to think it was one of Horatio's raw jokes.

"Why not?... I ain't as old as some, if I'm not as young as others."

"Who is the lady?"

"A fine young woman!... I've known her well for years, and I can tell
you she'll make the right sort of wife for any man."

"Who can it be?" demanded Milly, now quite excited, and running over in
her mind all of her father's female acquaintance, which was not
extensive.

"Miss Simpson," Horatio said. "Expect you don't remember Josephine
Simpson--she was the young woman who was in the office when I had the
coffee business."

"That woman!" Milly gasped, remembering vividly now the sour, keen
scrutiny the bookkeeper had given her the last time she had been in the
office of the tea and coffee business. It must have been Miss Simpson
who had stood a little to one side behind her father at the funeral. The
thin-faced woman had a familiar look, but in her best clothes Milly had
not recognized her.

Horatio resented the tone of his daughter's exclamation.

"Let me tell you, Milly," he asserted with dignity, "there are few
better women living on this earth than 'that woman.' She's looked after
a sick mother and a younger sister all her life, and now I mean she
shall have somebody look after her."

The little man rose an inch bodily with his intention.

"I think it's very nice of you, papa."

"Nice of me! An old hulks like me?... I guess it's nice of her to let
me.... We'll make out all right. Will you come to the wedding?" he
concluded with a laugh.

"Of course--and I'm so glad for you, really glad, papa. I hope
Josephine'll make you very happy."

And she kissed her father.

On her way back to the city Milly laughed aloud several times with
amusement mingled with relief. "Who would have thought it--and with such
a scarecrow!" She stopped at the _Star_ to tell Jack the news. They had
lunch together and laughed again and again at "love's young dream."

"He won't be lonely now!" Milly said.

"I suppose he had to have some woman attached to him," her husband
mused; "when a man has reached his age and has had 'em about al