th a bad taste in her mouth and can't help it, lettin' her
slide at that.

I forgot what it was we did talk about. It was each other mostly, I
guess. You can do that when you've known anyone as long as we had; and
it's a comfort, once in a while.

After a bit, though, we didn't say much of any thing. I was just lookin'
at Sadie. And say, I've seen her when I thought she looked mighty nice,
but I'd never got just that view of her before, with the moon kind of
touchin' up her red hair, and her cheeks and neck lookin' like white
satin.

She has a way, too, of starin' off at nothin' at all, sometimes, and
then there's a look in her eyes, and a little twist to her mouth
corners, that just sets me tinglin' all over with the wantin' to put me
arm around her and tell her that no matter who else goes back on her,
there'll always be Shorty McCabe to fall back on. It wa'n't anything new
or sudden for me. I'd felt like that many a time, and as far back as
when her mother ran a prune dispensary next door to my house, and she
an' I used to sit on the front steps after supper. She'd have spells of
starin' that way then, 'choppin' off a laugh in the middle to do it, and
maybe finishin' up with a giggle. I guess that's only the Irish in her,
but it always caught me.

She must have been lookin' that way then, for the first thing I knows
I'd reached out and pulled her up close. She never kicks, but just
snuggles her head down on my shoulder, with them blue eyes turned so I
could look way down into 'em. At that I draws a deep breath.

"Sadie," says I, husky like, "you're the best ever!"

She only smiles, kind of sober, but kind of contented, too.

"And if I had the nerve," says I, "I'd ask you to be Mrs. Shorty
McCabe."

"It's too bad you've lost your nerve so sudden," says she.

"Wha-a-at!" says I. "Will you, Sadie; will you?"

"Silly!" says she. "Of course I will."

"Bless the saints!" says I. "When?"

"Any time, Shorty," says she. "You've been long enough about it,
goodness knows."

Well say! You talk about your whirlwind finishes! I guess the crowd that
was bunched there in the cabin, sayin' good night, must have thought
I'd gone clear off my pivot, the way I comes down the stairs.

"Where's the bishop?" says I.

"Right here, my boy," says he. "What's the matter?"

"Matter?" says I. "Why, it's the greatest thing ever happened, and
nobody to it. Folks," I says, "if the bishop is willin', and hasn't
forgot his lines,