gan to cry.

"Oh, Sophy!" wailed Alicia, "whatever is the matter with us, anyhow?
What is wrong, Sophy? Why are we quarreling? What are we quarreling
about, Sophy?"

I put my hands to my head. "I don't know. That is. I can't tell. I
mean. I can't think, at all!

"Doctor Geddes has spoken like an honest man," said The Author,
standing flat-footed in his pointed red shoes. "Mr. Jelnik, I ask
you plainly: Why do I find Miss Smith here at this hour? Why and
wherefore the mystery? Let me remind you that I have asked Miss
Smith to marry me, and that she hasn't as yet given me her answer,"
he finished, significantly.

"Why, Sophy!" gasped Alicia. "Why, Sophy Smith!"

"Holy Moses!" gasped Doctor Geddes. "What, man, you too? Well, then,
if it comes to that, I can call you to account, Jelnik, because _I_
asked Sophy to marry me, too. In my case she had sense enough to
say 'No' at once."

"You know he did, Sophy!" Alicia corroborated him tearfully. "You
told me so yourself, though you never so much as opened your mouth
about The Author; and I don't think that was a bit like you, Sophy.
And why you refused the doctor, I can't for the life of me imagine!"

"Can't you? Well, _I_ can," snorted the doctor, and drew Alicia
closer to him. She put both her hands around his arm.

"What!" gulped The Author, rocking on his red toes, and wrinkling
his nose until his waxed mustache stood out with infernal effect,
and his corked eyebrows climbed into his hair. "What! You, Geddes?
My sainted aunt! Why, man alive, I thought that you--that is I'd
have sworn that you--" Here The Author's breath mercifully failed
him.

I was dumb as a sheep in the hands of the slayers. I could only
blink at these dear people who were tormenting me. I thought of
Jessamine Hynds in her brown silk frock, with the crucifix in her
skeleton fingers and the earth fresh over her. And I couldn't say a
word. And while I stood thus silent, Mr. Nicholas Jelnik walked up
and took my hand in his warm and comforting clasp, and looked at me
with kindling, starry eyes, and laughed a deep-chested laugh.

"Gentlemen and Miss Gaines," said Mr. Jelnik, in a ringing and
vibrant voice, "permit me to inform you that I also have asked Miss
Smith to marry me. And she has done me the honor to accept me."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE GREATEST GIFT

The Author threw his short cape backward, laid one hand upon the
hilt of his sword, doffed his cap, and made a sweeping courtesy.