ose and
began to set away the dishes. "But 'fore you git through with this
you'll laugh out o' t'other side o' your mouth, an' so I tell ye."

Upon her words there was a step at the door, and Stella knew the step
was Jerry's. Her mother, with the prescience born of ire, knew it too.

"There he is," she said. "Now you go to cuttin' up any didos, things
gone as fur as they have, an' you'll repent this night's work the
longest day you live. You be a good girl an' go 'n' let him in!"

She had returned to her placidity, a quiet domestic fowl whose feathers
were only to be ruffled when some terrifying shadow flitted overhead.

Stella flew to the door and opened it on her lover, standing still and
calm, like a figure set there by destiny to conquer her.

"Jerry," she burst forth out of the nervous thrill her mother had
awakened in her, "you're botherin' me 'most to death. It's awful not to
ask you in when you come to the door, and you a neighbor so. But I
can't. You know I can't. It ain't as if you'd come in the day-time. But
Saturday night--it's just as if--why, you know what Saturday night is.
It's just as if we were goin' together."

Jerry stood there immovable, looking at her. He had shaved and he wore
the red tie she had given him. Perhaps it was not so much that she saw
him clearly through the early dusk as that she knew from memory how kind
his eyes were and what a healthy color flushed his face. It seemed to
her at this moment as if Jerry was the nicest person in the world, if
only he wouldn't plague her so. But he was speaking out of his
persistent quiet.

"I might as well tell you, Stella, an' you might as well make up your
mind to it. It ain't to-night only. I'm comin' here every Saturday
night."

She was near crying with the vexation of it.

"But you can't, Jerry," she said. "I don't want you to."

"You used to want me to," said he composedly.

"Well, that was when we were--"

"When we were goin' together." He nodded in acceptance of the quibble.
"Well, if you wanted me once, a girl like you, you'll want me ag'in. An'
anyways, I'm comin'."

Stella felt a curious thrill of pride in him.

"Why, Jerry," she faltered, "I didn't know you took things that way."

He was answering quite simply, as if he had hardly guessed it either.

"Well, I don't know myself how I'm goin' to take things till I've
thought 'em out. That's the only way. Then, after ye've made up your
mind, ye can stick to it."

Stella f