go away and--and go to bed."

"That'll be welcome news for Jaky, all right," says I.

CHAPTER XIX

WHEN MISS VEE THREW THE DARE

Say, I guess I might as well tell it right out; for, from all I hear
about myself, my dome must have a glass top that puts all the inside
works on exhibition. There's Zenobia, for instance, who's my
half-step-adopted aunt, as you might say. Now, she ain't one to sleuth
around, or cross-examine, or anything like that; but what she's missed
of this little affair that I ain't breathed a word of to anybody is
more'n I've got the nerve to ask.

Course, it was her put that corkin' silver frame on Vee's picture in the
first place. Just found it on my bureau, you know, and, without pumpin'
me for any account of who and why, goes and unbelts reckless for the
sterling decoration. A perfectly nice old girl, Zenobia is, if you ask
me. More'n a year ago that was, and there hasn't been a word passed
about that photo since.

Yes, it's been on the bureau all the time. Why not? When a young lady
friend of yours is dragged off to Europe by her aunt, and sends you a
stunnin' picture of herself for you to remember her by, you don't turn
it face to the wall or chuck it in the ashcan, do you? Maybe two years
it would be, she said, before she came back. It ain't so long to look
over your shoulder at; but when you come to try squintin' ahead that far
it's diff'rent. I tried it and gave it up. A whole lot can happen in two
years; so what was the use? Besides, look who she is, and then think of
all I ain't!

Couldn't help seein' the picture there night and mornin', though, could
I? Nothin' mushy about glancin' casual at it now and then, was there?
You know I ain't got any too many friends,--not so many I has to have a
waitin' list,--and outside of Zenobia and Aunt Martha, and here and
there one of the lady typewriters at the office that throws me a smile
on and off, they're mostly men. And as for fam'ly, mother, or father, or
sisters, or brothers, or real aunts--well, you know how I'm fixed. I'm
the whole fam'ly myself.

So you see, when I looks at Miss Vee there, and thinks how nice she was
to me them two times when we met by accident,--once at the dance where I
was subbin' in the cloakroom, and again at the tea where I'd been sent
to trail Mr. Robert--well, even if she hadn't been such a queen, I don't
think I'd forgot her right away. Course, though, as for figurin' out
why she ever noticed me at al