ed Francis rather disgustedly, following her
over and sitting down by her at the other corner of the seat. "Other
people do it."

"'Curiouser and Curiouser! I begin to think I'm in Wonderland!'" she
quoted. "I think the easiest way for you to do will be just to tell me
all about remittance men, the way you do a child when it starts to ask
questions. Just what are they, and do they all look like Pennington,
and are they trained to be it, or does it come natural?"

"A remittance man," Francis explained again, "is a term, more or less,
of disgrace. He is a man who has done something in his own country
which makes his relatives wish him out of it. So they remit money to
him as long as he stays away."

If he expected to make Marjorie feel shocked at Pennington by this tale
he was quite disappointed.

"And does Pennington get money for staying away, besides what he helps
you and gets?" she demanded. "What does he do with it all?"

"I don't suppose it's a great deal," said Francis reluctantly.

"Well, all I have to say is, I'm perfectly certain that if anybody's
paying Pennington to stay away from England, they're some horrid kind
of person that just is disagreeable, and doesn't know his real worth.
Why, Francis, he's helped me learn the ways here, and looked after me,
as if he was my mother. He's exactly like somebody's mother."

Francis could not help smiling a little. Marjorie, when she wanted to
be--sometimes when she did not want to be--was irresistible.

"But, Marjorie," he began to explain to her very seriously, "however
much he may seem like a mother, he isn't one. He's a man, though he's
rather an old one. And he did do things in England so he had to leave.
I don't want him to fall in love with you; it would be embarrassing for
several reasons."

"But why should he fall in love with me?" she demanded innocently.
"Lots of people don't."

"But, Marjorie," her husband remonstrated, "they do. Look at Logan,
now. No reason on earth would have brought him up here but being in
love with you. You might as well admit it."

"All I ever did was to listen to him when he talked," said Marjorie,
shrugging one shoulder. She liked what Francis was saying, but she
felt in honor bound to be truthful about such things. "And besides
you, there was only one other man ever asked me to marry him--I mean,
not counting Logan, if you do count him. Oh, yes, and then there was
another one yet, with a guitar. He alw