in! Honest I'm not! I'm glad my father's kind. I
wouldn't love him if he wasn't, and you needn't think I would!"

Rosie struggled hard to convince Danny, but in vain. The more she
protested, the louder Danny chuckled.

"Only think, Rosie dear, the pride in yir heart, if this great brute of
a man, rampin' about like a lion, tearin' to pieces everybody that stood
in his way, in yir own prisence, wee bit of a woman that ye are, should
turn into a tame lamb!"

"Oh, Danny!"

In spite of herself, Rosie faced the world with something of the
conscious air of a lion-tamer. Danny's chuckle recalled her to herself,
and she watched him with growing resentment, as he continued:

"You see, Rosie, it's this way: The worse brute a man is, the greater
glory he brings to the woman that tames him. Rosie, me advice to any
young man that is courtin' a girl is to roar--not to roar at her, mind,
but at everybody else when she's within hearin'. What a fine feelin' it
must give a girl to have a roarin' bull of a young fella come softly up
to her and eat out of her hand! And think of the great game it is to
keep him tame! Rosie, take me word for it, these here soft-spoken men
like yir own poor da and like meself--I take shame to confess it--make a
great mistake. Many's the time it had been better for me peace of mind
afterward had I let out a roar just for appearances' sake. I see it
now."

Danny wagged his head and sighed.

"It's lucky for you, Rosie, that you have me to tell you all this, for
ye'd never hear it from the ladies themselves. They never let out a
whisper about it, but carry on just like Janet and yir own ma. Ah, don't
tell me! I know them! They's some kind of a mystic sisterhood among
them--I dunno just what, and in some few things they never give each
other away."

"Don't they, Danny?"

"They do not."

Rosie regarded the old man thoughtfully. One could see the very
processes of a new idea slowly working in her mind. Danny watched her
curiously. At length he asked: "Well, Rosie, what is it?"

Rosie paused impressively before answering: "I was just thinking, Danny
Agin, that you're right about yourself, but you're making a great
mistake about my father." Rosie nodded significantly. "He's not as quiet
as you think he is, in spite of his quiet ways. Sometimes he's just
awful."

For a moment Danny was taken in. "Why, Rosie, aren't you just afther
tellin' me about the scar that wasn't there?"

"Yes, and I'm sorry now