Why, my dear girl, if any one
had told me--"

"Cruel, perhaps, Ranny, but the action of a strong man."

"I think it's a great mistake," said the masculine voice in a tone of
profound displeasure, "for a girl situated as you are to have anything
to do with her employer and his guests. What do you know about these
fellows? How old is this Tucker?"

"Oh, about forty, I should think."

The listener's eyes brightened by ten years.

"What does he look like?"

"Oh, people are so difficult to describe, Ranny."

"You can describe them all right when you try."

"Well," ... Tucker's excitement became intense ... "well, he looks like
the husband on the stage with a dash of powder above the ears, who wins
the weak young wife back again in the last act."

With a long deep breath, Tucker rose to his feet. He felt like a
different man, a strong, dangerous fellow.

"Dear girl," said the masculine voice below him, "you're not going to
let this man make love to you."

"Oh, Ranny, he's never tried. He's much too dignified and reserved."

"But if he did try, you would not let him?"

"You, if any one, ought to know that it isn't always easy to prevent."

"I don't know what you mean by that. You've always prevented me, as
often as you wanted to."

"Often, but not as often as that. There, Ranny, do get on with the
ice-cream. That terrible old woman is coming to stay this evening with
her daughter, and you may be sure she'll have us all turned out if
everything isn't just right."

"Crane is supposed to be engaged to the daughter," said the male voice.

"Well, I don't envy him his mother-in-law."

"What do you think of Crane?"

There was a pause. At first Tucker feared he might have missed the
answer, but presently the question was repeated.

"I asked you what you thought of Crane."

"Oh, I've seen a good many young men of that type in my time," was the
reply.

"How strange women are," remarked the ice-cream maker, who had now once
again settled down to work. "I should have thought Crane just the man
to attract women, well built, good-looking, a splendid horseman--"

"Would you say good-looking?" asked the cook. Tucker had been putting
exactly the same question to himself.

But the speaker did not intend to answer it, he went on with his own
train of thought: "And here you go into raptures over an old fellow, old
enough to be your father--"

"Should you say I went into raptures?"

"You talk as if you were prepar