u."

Rosie's patience was about exhausted, but she restrained herself. "But,
Dad, if I was to do something awful bad--steal ten dollars, or run away
from home!"

Jamie looked at Rosie, then at the sky line, then at the soap-box, then
back at Rosie. Surely now a brutal threat was coming.

"Why, Rosie dear, I don't think you'd ever do anything like that!"

Huh! What kind of an answer was that for a father to give his child?
Rosie straightened her back, and without another word departed. She felt
that her worst fears were justified. Any man as difficult to trap as
Jamie O'Brien was a dangerous character.

She nursed her resentment the rest of the evening. Just before she went
to sleep, however, she decided, as a matter of scrupulous justice, to
suspend final judgment until she should have seen for herself that
damning evidence of his brutality, namely, the scar on her poor mother's
right shoulder. Yes, she would find some excuse for seeing it at once.

The next morning, while her mother was preparing to go to market, of
itself the opportunity came.

"Rosie dear," Mrs. O'Brien called down from upstairs, "I need your help.
One of me corset strings is busted."

Rosie found her mother seated at the bureau, half dressed, fanning
herself with a towel. A full expanse of neck and shoulders was exposed,
so that Rosie, busied at her mother's back, was able to scan minutely
all that there was to scan. She looked and looked again, and by patting
her mother affectionately, was able to add the testimony of touch to
that of sight.

In due time her mother departed, and Rosie, left alone, turned to the
mirror and gazed into it several moments without speaking.

"Well!" she said at last. "What do you know about that!"

She shook her head at the round-eyed person in the mirror, and the
round-eyed person nodded back, as deeply impressed with the
inexplicability of things as Rosie herself.

CHAPTER XVI

WHAT EVERY LADY WANTS

All morning Rosie moved about the house preoccupied and silent, heaving
an occasional sigh, murmuring an occasional "Huh!"

At dinner she paid scant attention to her mother's market adventures,
and with difficulty heard Terry's orders concerning a new paper
customer. Her mind was too fully occupied with a problem of its own to
be interested in anything else.

On the whole it was a strange problem, and one that, after hours of
thought, remained unsolved. By mid-afternoon Rosie was ready to cast