t know you, whom I've
lived with off and on for thirty years--don't know how you'd treat me if
you were married to me. How in thunder am I going to know about the girl
I get engaged to, before it's too late?"

"You won't," she said. "You haven't a chance in the world."

"Hm!" he grunted, obviously struck with this idea. "You're giving the
prospect of marriage new attractions. You're making the thing out--an
adventure."

She nodded rather soberly. "Oh, I'm not afraid for you," she said. "Men
like adventures--you more than most. But women don't. They like to dream
about them, but they want to turn over to the last chapter and see how
it's going to end. It's the girl I'm worried about.... Oh, come along!
We're talking nonsense. I'll go up with you and see that they've given
you pajamas and a tooth-brush."

She had accomplished this purpose, kissed him good night, and under the
hint of his unbuttoned waistcoat and his winding watch, turned to leave
the room, when her eye fell on a heap of damp, warped, pasteboard-bound
note-books, which she remembered having observed in his side pockets
when he first came in. The color on the pasteboard binding had run, and
as they lay on the drawn linen cover to the chiffonier, she went over
and picked them up to see how much damage they'd done. Then she frowned,
peered at the paper label that had half peeled off of the topmost cover,
and read what was written on it.

"Who," she asked with considerable emphasis, "is Rosalind Stanton?"

"Oh," said Rodney very casually, behind the worst imitation of a yawn
she had ever seen, "oh, she got put off the car when I did."

"That sounds rather exciting," said Frederica behind an imitation yawn
of her own--but a better one. "Going to tell me about it?"

"Nothing much to tell," said Rodney. "There was a row about a fare, as I
said. The conductor was evidently solid concrete above the collar-bone,
and didn't think she'd paid. And she grabbed him and very nearly threw
him out into the street--could have done it, I believe, as easily as
not. And he began to talk about punching somebody's head. And then, we
both got put off. So, naturally, I walked with her over to the elevated.
And then I forgot to give her her note-books and came away with them."

"What sort of looking girl?" asked Frederica. "Is she pretty?"

"Why, I don't know," said Rodney judicially. "Really, you know, I hardly
got a fair look at her."

Frederica made a funny sounding l