used
her escort with a glowering side-glance.

Mrs. Harnden simpered.

Vona had never found her mother an especially stable support in times of
stress, but the girl did feel that the maternal spirit might arise and
help in an emergency as vital as that one! Mrs. Harnden, however,
was gazing into the arena and was blandly indicating by her demeanor,
"Thumbs down!"

Then the girl appealed to her father, mutely eager; denied sympathy, she
was asking for protection. But Mr. Harnden was distinctly not extending
protection. He was looking at Mr. Britt. By avoiding what he knew the
girl was asking for with all her soul in her eyes, Mr. Harnden was
indulging his consistent selfishness; he hated to be worried by the
troubles of others; others' woes placed brambles on the pathway of his
optimism.

"Tasper, you have certainly jumped the Harnden family--jumped us
complete! You can't expect a girl to get her voice back right away. But
I suppose it's up to me to speak for the family."

Vaniman stepped into the center of the room. "I suppose so, too, Mr.
Harnden. I'll confess that I came into your house this evening with that
idea in my mind."

Now the girl had eyes only for the one whom she recognized as her
real champion; those eyes would have inspired a knight to any sort of
derring-do, Frank was telling himself.

"That being agreed, I'll speak," stated Mr. Harnden, throwing back his
coat lapels and displaying all his pencil quills.

"Just one moment, sir, till I have shown that Mr. Britt has no monopoly
on courage--seeing that he has put invasion of a quiet home on that
plane. I love your daughter. I want her for my wife. I came here to tell
you so; but I was putting politeness ahead of my anxiety after you told
me that you were engaged."

"Harnden, that man hasn't a cent in the world," Britt declared. "He
sends away every sou markee he can spare from his salary. He buys checks
from me. I can show 'em." Out came Britt's big wallet; he threw down the
paper-covered novel.

"I support my mother and I'm putting my young sister through school,"
admitted the cashier. "Mr. Britt is right. But every time I buy one of
his checks I buy a lot of honest comfort for myself."

"I think, young man, that the Harnden family better not interfere with
the comfort of the Vaniman family," averred the father, loftily. "I'd
hate to think I was a party to taking bread from the mouths of a mother
and a sister. I'm sure Vona feels the same w