woke up," scoffed Jenny.

"No, really he isn't," Corin persisted. "But he's been a big worker all
his life. Thunder and sleet never troubled him. And, looking at it this
way, you know the saying, ''Tis better to be an old man's darling than a
young man's slave.'"

"But I don't like him--not in the way that I could marry him." Jenny had
a terrible feeling of battered down defenses, of some inexorable force
advancing against her.

"Yes; but you might grow to like him. It's happened before now with
maids. And look, he's willing for 'ee to have your sister to live with
you, and that means providing for her. What 'ud become of her if
anything happened to you or your father?"

"She could go and live with my sister Edie or my brother."

"Yes; but we all know what that may mean, whereas if she comes to live
with you, Zack will be so proud of her as if she were his very own
sister."

Jenny was staggered by the pertinacity of this wooing and made a slip.

"Yes; but when does he want to marry me?"

The pleader was not slow to take hold of this.

"Then you'll consider it, eh?"

"I never said so," Jenny replied in a quick attempt to retrieve her
blunder.

"Well, he wants to marry you now at once."

"But I couldn't. For one thing I couldn't leave the theater all in a
hurry. It would look so funny. Besides----"

"Well," Zack said, "Don't worry the maid, William John, but leave her to
find out her own mind and I'll bide here along till she do know it."

Mr. Corin dwelt on the magnanimity of his friend and having, as he
thought, made a skillful attack on Jenny's prejudice, retired to let his
arguments sink in. He had effected even more than he imagined by his
cool statement of the proposal. Put forward by him, devoid of all
passion and eccentricity of language, it seemed a very business-like
affair. Jenny began to think how such a step would solve the problem of
taking a new house, of moving the furniture, of providing for May, of
getting rid of her father, now daily more irritating on account of his
besotted manner of life. All the girls at the theater were marrying. It
was in the air. She was growing old. The time of romantic adventure was
gone. The carnival was petering out in a gloomy banality. Change was
imminent in every direction. Why not make a clean sweep of the old life
and, escaping to some strange new existence, create a fresh illusion of
pleasure? What would her mother have said to this offer? Jenny could n