lite.'

"'Oh, Lord! I wonder if she'll be willing?' says he.

"'No reason I shouldn't turn an honest dollar on the
transaction--I'll bet you a month's wages she is,' says I. He
wanted to do it, thinking I was in earnest, but I laughed at him.

"She was willing all right--even anxious. There's some women, and
men, too, for that matter, who go through life like a cat through a
back alley, not caring a cuss for either end or the middle. They
would have been content to wait. Not so Loys. She wanted her
Kyle, her poor Kyle, and she wanted him quick. That's the kind of
people for me! Your cautious folk are all the time falling down
wells because their eyes are up in the air, keeping tabs so that
they can dodge shooting stars.

"Now, I had a minister friend up in town, Father Slade by name.
No, he was not a Catholic, I think. They called him 'Father'
because it fitted him. His church had a steeple on it, anyhow, so
it was no maverick. Just what particular kind of religion the old
man had I don't know, but I should say he was a homeopath on a
guess. He looked it. 'Twas a comfort to see him coming down the
street, his old face shining in his white hair like a shrivelled
pink apple in a snowdrift, God-blessing everything in sight--good,
bad, or indifferent. He had something pleasant to say to all. We
was quite friends, and every once in a while we'd have a chin about
things.

"'Are you keeping straight, Red?' he'd ask when we parted.

"'Um,' I'd say, 'I'm afraid you'd notice a bend here and there, if
you Slid your eyes along the edge.'

"'Well, keep as straight as you can; don't give up trying, my boy,'
he'd tell me, mighty earnest, and I'd feel ashamed of myself clear
around the corner.

"I knew the old man would do me a favour if it could be done, so I
pulled out easy in my mind.

"First place, I stopped at the doctor's, because I felt they might
fix up the marrying business some other time, but if a leg that's
broke in the upper joint ain't set right, you can see a large
dark-complected hunk of trouble over the party's left shoulder for
the rest of his days. The doctor was out, so I left word for him
what was wanted, and to be ready when I got back, and pulled for
Father Slade's. The old gentleman had the rheumatism, and he
groaned when I come in. Rheumatism's no disease for people who
can't swear.

"'How are you, my boy?' says he; 'I'm glad to see you. Here am I,
an old man, nipped by the leg