divil that stole the dog-team an' wint over the Pass in the
dead o' winter for to see where the world come to an ind on the ither
side, just because old Matt McCarthy was afther tellin' her fairy
stories?"

"O Matt, dear old Matt! Remember the time I went swimming with the
Siwash girls from the Indian camp?"

"An' I dragged ye out by the hair o' yer head?"

"And lost one of your new rubber boots?"

"Ah, an' sure an' I do. And a most shockin' an' immodest affair it
was! An' the boots was worth tin dollars over yer father's counter."

"And then you went away, over the Pass, to the Inside, and we never
heard a word of you. Everybody thought you dead."

"Well I recollect the day. An' ye cried in me arms an' wuddent kiss
yer old Matt good-by. But ye did in the ind," he exclaimed,
triumphantly, "whin ye saw I was goin' to lave ye for sure. What a wee
thing ye were!"

"I was only eight."

"An' 'tis twelve year agone. Twelve year I've spint on the Inside,
with niver a trip out. Ye must be twinty now?"

"And almost as big as you," Frona affirmed.

"A likely woman ye've grown into, tall, an' shapely, an' all that." He
looked her over critically. "But ye cud 'a' stood a bit more flesh,
I'm thinkin'."

"No, no," she denied. "Not at twenty, Matt, not at twenty. Feel my
arm, you'll see." She doubled that member till the biceps knotted.

"'Tis muscle," he admitted, passing his hand admiringly over the
swelling bunch; "just as though ye'd been workin' hard for yer livin'."

"Oh, I can swing clubs, and box, and fence," she cried, successively
striking the typical postures; "and swim, and make high dives, chin a
bar twenty times, and--and walk on my hands. There!"

"Is that what ye've been doin'? I thought ye wint away for
book-larnin'," he commented, dryly.

"But they have new ways of teaching, now, Matt, and they don't turn you
out with your head crammed--"

"An' yer legs that spindly they can't carry it all! Well, an' I
forgive ye yer muscle."

"But how about yourself, Matt?" Frona asked. "How has the world been
to you these twelve years?"

"Behold!" He spread his legs apart, threw his head back, and his chest
out. "Ye now behold Mister Matthew McCarthy, a king iv the noble
Eldorado Dynasty by the strength iv his own right arm. Me possessions
is limitless. I have more dust in wan minute than iver I saw in all me
life before. Me intintion for makin' this trip to the States is to
look up me