her and more
trivial things were spoken of, as a rule, in a second short paragraph
which, to the initiated, would have seemed rather more important than
the longer announcements. At any rate, that which they asked in
exchange for the gifts they were prepared to lavish always appeared to
be quite trivial, at first sight.

Sophy McGurn, as she kept on reading, was not a little impressed. Yet,
gradually, a certain native shrewdness in her nature began to assert
itself. She had helped her father in the store for several years and
knew that gaudy labels might cover inferior goods. She by no means
believed all the things she read. At times she even detected
exaggeration, lack of candor, motives less allowable than the ones so
readily advanced.

"Guess most of them are fakes," she finally decided, not unwisely.
"But there's some of them must get terribly fooled. I--I wonder...."

Her cogitations were interrupted by a small boy who entered and asked
for a stamped envelope. A few people, later on, came in to find out if
there was any mail for them. But during the intervals she kept on
poring over those pages. One by one the lights of Carcajou were going
out. Carreau's fiddle had stopped whining long before. The cat lay
asleep in the wood-box, near the stove, with the kitten nestled
against her. Old McGurn called down to her that it was time for bed,
but the girl made no answer.

Yes, it was a marvelous idea that had come to her. She saw a dim
prospect of revenge. It was as if the frosted windows had gradually
cleared and let in the light of the stars. Hugo Ennis had made a
laughing-stock of her. He didn't like carrots, forsooth! She was only
too conscious of the failure of her efforts to attract him. But he had
noticed them and commented on them to others, evidently. It was enough
to make one wild!

The oil in the swinging lamp had grown very low and the light dim by
the time she finished a letter, in which she enclosed some money. Then
she stamped it and placed it in the bag that would be taken up in the
morning, for the eastbound express. Finally she placed the heavy iron
bar against the front door and went up the creaking stairs to her room
as the loud-ticking clock boomed out eleven strokes, an unearthly hour
for Carcajou.

A couple of weeks later a copy of the _Matrimonial Journal_ was
forwarded to A.B.C., P.O. Box 17, Carcajou, Ontario, Canada. Miss
Sophy McGurn retired with it to her room, looked nervously out of