hen,
while Mr. Gillie, his chair tilted backward, a picture of magnificent
unconcern, coolly blew smoke rings into the air.

"Something to say to me?" repeated Mrs. Blaine.

"Asch--ooah!"

His chair suddenly returning to the floor level with a thud that shook
the house, Mr. Gillie sneezed violently, a physiological phenomenon
which curiously enough never failed to present itself when any
extraordinary pressure was put upon his brain cells. Wiping his watery
eyes with a pink-bordered handkerchief--a color he rather affected--he
began eloquently:

"Mrs. Blaine, you're a sensible woman. I feel I can talk to you plain.
There comes a time in every man's life when he feels lonesome--when it
looks good to him to have someone round all the time, looking after
things--his dinner, his clothes, and so on. Why, sometimes I go around
for weeks with my suspenders only half fastened, just because I've got
no one to sew a button on. It gets on a feller's nerves--yes, it
does--until at last he says to himself: 'Jimmie, my boy, you've
knocked about alone long enough. You want to hitch up with some girl
and take it easy a bit.'" He stopped a moment to gauge the effect of
his words, but as Mrs. Blaine gave no sign that she understood what he
was driving at, he proceeded: "I'm not much good at speechifying. With
the frills all cut and to come to the point, this is what it is: Fanny
seems the kind of girl I'm looking for, and I don't see I could do any
better. I've just asked her, and now it's kinder up to you--"

The widow took off her spectacles and gasped. Could she have heard
aright? He was actually asking for Fanny. She was amazed not so much
at his monumental selfishness and impudence as that Fanny herself
could have given him the slightest encouragement. She fully realized
that times had changed since the days when they lifted their heads
proudly in the world, but to sink as low as this seemed too terrible,
too humiliating. Yet, after all, could she blame her daughter? What
was her present life, what would be her future, without education,
without money--unless she had someone who could take care of her?
Dissembling her indignation as much as possible, she inquired suavely:

"This takes me very much by surprise, Mr. Gillie. You will, of course,
allow me leisure to talk it over with my daughter. May I ask if your
means permit you to provide a comfortable home for Fanny--the kind of
home to which she has been accustomed?"

The