careless bravado, she strove to win her understanding.

"You don't know how I feel, Rosie; you can't, because you and me are
made differently. You're perfectly happy if you've got some one to love
and take care of--you know you are! With me it's different. I don't want
to take care of people and work for them and slave for them. I want to
have a good time myself! I'm just crazy about it! I know I ought to be
ashamed, but can I help it? That's the way I am. Do you think I'm very
awful, Rosie?"

Rosie answered truthfully: "I'm not thinking of you at all. I'm thinking
of poor Jarge."

Ellen gave a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness I can give up thinking of
him for a while." She began patting her hair and arranging her hat. "Do
I look all right, Rosie? I got to hurry back to the shop. A feather
salesman is coming today and Miss Graydon wants me to take care of him.
He'll probably invite me out to lunch."

"And are you going?" Rosie asked slowly.

Ellen took a long happy breath. "You bet I'm going!"

"Ellen O'Brien, if you do, I'll tell Jarge! I will just as sure!"

For an instant Ellen was staggered. Then she recovered. "No, Rosie,
you'll do no such thing! What you'll do is this: you'll mind your own
business!"

Rosie tried to protest but her voice failed her, for the look in Ellen's
eye betokened a will as strong as her own and a determination to brook
no interference.

Ellen started off, then paused to repeat: "You'll mind your own
business! Do you understand?"

Ellen walked on and Rosie called after her, a little wildly: "I won't! I
won't! I tell you I won't!"

But she knew she would.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

ELLEN HAS HER FLING

It is hard to be the self-appointed guardian of another's interests, for
one's standing is not, as it were, official. In the weeks that followed
Rosie felt this keenly. She gave up protesting to Ellen, for Ellen's
curt answer to everything she might say was always: "You mind your own
business!" Though she would not accept Ellen's dictum that George's
business was not hers, yet she was soon forced to give up direct action
and to seek her end through the interference of others. She tried her
mother.

"I don't care what you say, Ma, Ellen's just as crooked as she can be,
acting this way with other fellows when she doesn't even deny that she's
engaged to Jarge. And you ought to stop it, too! There, the very first
week he was gone, she went out three nights hand-running with that