m?"

"Just as ye are; fur better, or fur wus, Lil."

"And marry me here, now, before we go home?"

"Marry ye, Lil? I'd marry ye if I'd a found ye in a----; I won't give it
a name, Lil. I didn't to them, and I won't to you."

She gave him her hand as firmly and frankly as though she had been a
pure woman, and said, "I'm yours, Dick. We'll be married here,
to-morrow."

She took charge of all the arrangements; called a cab which took them to
the Michigan Exchange; sent Dick off to his room with orders to secure a
license the first thing in the morning; wrote two notes to a certain
person, one addressed to Mother Blake, and the other to _his_
post-office box, ordering them posted that night; and went to her room
to sleep the sleep of the just, which, contrary to general belief, also
often comes to the unjust.

Early in the morning, Dick came with the license and suggested securing
the services of a preacher; but Lilly said that she had arranged that
matter already, and had got a clergyman who, she was sure, would not
disappoint them; and promptly at two o'clock in the afternoon
courteously admitted the Rev. Mr. Bland, whom she had given the choice
of officiating or an exposure, and who performed the ceremony in a pale,
trembling way as the wicked old light gleamed in her great, gray eyes,
and the swift shuttles of color played over her curled lip.

That night found the newly-wedded couple whirling back to Kalamazoo,
where they arrived the next morning and were driven out to the
farm-house, where they were joyfully welcomed, and where Dick Hosford in
his blunt way announced that he had "found Lil workin' away like a good
girl, had married her and took a little bridal 'tower,' and had come
back to have no d----d questions asked."

So in a few days the young couple bade the Nettletons good-by and were
soon after installed in the pleasant farm-house near Terre Haute, where
the years passed on happily enough and brought them competence and
contentment and three children, who for a long time never knew the
meaning of the strange light in the eyes, or the swift colors on the
lips, of the mother who cared for them with an apparent full measure of
kindness and affection.

CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Pinkerton is called upon.-- Mr. Harcout, a
ministerial-looking Man, with an After-dinner Voice,
appears.-- A Case with a Woman in it, as is usually the
case.-- Mr. Pinkerton hesitates.-- An anxious Millionair