he detritus and possible repair-material of
years of housekeeping--all this Sissy took in with the unseeing eyes one
has for the familiar.

She did not expect her father's room to be like any one else's; neither
did she look for an easy and successful termination to her quest.
Sometimes she got what she asked for, but she asked for little. And
to-day Francis Madigan had been tinkering at the old house, hammering
here and patching there, a process that specially tried his temper,
being a threatening indication of change, which he resented by declaring
that "everything goes to the devil."

"Father," began Sissy, carefully, as she met his inquiring eye, "do you
approve of dancing?"

He looked up from his cards. "What nonsense are you talking now?"

"Because Irene and I have a good chance to practise it--dancing--this
afternoon."

"Well--practise," he growled.

"Shall we? All right. It's Crosby's party, you know. He's thirteen
to-day. It's his party. His mother's giving it for him at Cooper's Hall.
And there'll be dancing and--"

"Nonsense!"

"Yes," agreed Sissy, sweetly. "But we'll go if you say so. I won't need
any dress, and--" she hurried on as he raised his head belligerently,
"neither will Irene. Isn't that lucky? My brown will do, though the
over-skirt does jump up when I dance and show the red sham underneath;
but--"

"What are you bothering me about, then?" he demanded indignantly,
throwing down his cards.

"Gloves," she said gently. Then quickly, before he could speak, "That's
all. They don't cost very much. Or, I'll tell you,"--her voice grew
suddenly most cheerful, as though she had made a discovery that must
delight him,--"we can wear mitts. I don't mind--and neither will Split.
Just a pair of blue lace ones for her and pink for me, or--or--" her
voice wavered, but she was ready to pay the price, "just blue ones for
Split, father."

He put his hand in his pocket. "Why not just pink ones for Sissy?" he
asked almost good-naturedly.

Sissy shook her head, but the red rushed to her cheeks. She had won!

"Are you sure you need them?" he asked cautiously in the very act of
bestowal.

"Sure! Sure!" she cried, throwing her arms gratefully about his neck
before she danced to the door.

"But you're going, too?" he called after her. "All right, then. Make
Irene behave. She's an ox--that girl."

An ox, of course, interpreted variously according to Madigan's mood and
the correlating circumstances, sig