l make you happy." She made no move to
take the ring, only backed a step.

Quickly Sue put out her hand. "Let me take it, dear brother. And try
not to feel too bad." She had on a long coat. She dropped the ring
into a pocket.

"And, Sue, I want to tell you"--he spoke as if they were alone
together--"that I'm ashamed of what I said to you yesterday--that
you're quick to think wrong. You're not. And you were right. And
you're the best sister a man ever had."

"Never mind," comforted Sue. "Never mind."

He tried to smile. "This--this is chickens coming home to roost, isn't
it?" he asked; turned, fighting against tears, and with a smothered
farewell entered the house.

Mrs. Balcome wiped her eyes. "Oh, poor Wallace! Poor boy!" she
mourned. And to Sue, "I hope you're satisfied! You started out
yesterday to stop this wedding--your own brother's wedding!--and you've
succeeded. I can't fathom your motives--except that some women, when
they fail to land husbands of their own, simply hate to see anybody
else have one. It's the envy of the--soured spinster."

Sue was busily arranging the toys. "So I can't land a husband, eh?"
she laughed.

"But your mother tells me that you're championing the unmarried
alliance," went on Mrs. Balcome.

"You mean Laura Farvel, of course. Well, not exactly. You see,
neither mother nor I know anything against Mrs. Farvel except what Mrs.
Farvel has said herself. But one thing is certain: even an unmarried
alliance, as you call it, is more decent than a marriage without love."

"Oh, slam!" Balcome exploded in pure joy.

"How dare you!" cried Mrs. Balcome, dividing an angry look between her
husband and Sue.

"And," Sue went on serenely, "when it comes to that, I respect an
unmarried woman with a child fully as much as I do a married woman with
a poodle."

"Wow!" shouted Balcome.

"I think," proceeded Mrs. Balcome, suddenly mindful of the existence of
her own poodle, and looking calmly about for Babette, "I think that you
have softening of the brain."

"Well,"--Sue was tinkering with the smoke-stack--"I'd rather have
softening of the brain than hardening of the heart."

"Isn't she funny?" demanded Balcome, to draw his wife's fire. "She
doesn't dare to stand up for Wallace you'll notice, Sue,--though she'd
like to. But she can't because she's raved against that kind of thing
for years. So she has to abuse somebody else."

"There's a man for you!" cried his be