g a
dreadful mess of it! Why _didn't_ Pat produce the letter instead of
standing there like a wooden image?

Being an undertaker, Mr. Wilbur Stratman met a great many women whom he
never remembered. "H-m, Miss Gray--of course," he nodded. Encouraged,
Gyp plunged on, with the one desire of getting the ordeal over with.

"She's dreadfully unhappy. She's been faithful to you all these years
and she's lived in a little boarding house and worked and worked and
wouldn't marry anyone else and----"

With an instinct of self-defense Mr. Stratman rose to his feet and edged
ever so little toward the door. Plainly these two very young women were
stark mad!

"I am very sorry for Miss Gray but--what can I do?"

"Oh, _can't_ you marry her _now_? She's still very pretty----" Gyp was
trembling but undaunted. The precipice was there--she had to make the
leap!

The undertaker paused in his contemplated flight to stare--then he
laughed, a loud, hoarse laugh that sent the hot blood tingling to Gyp's
face.

"Who ever heard the beat of it! A proposal by proxy! _Ha! ha!_ My
business is _burying_ and not _marrying_! Ha! Ha! Pretty good! _I_ don't
know your Miss Gray. Even if I did I can't get away with a husky wife
and six children at home!"

Pat pulled furiously at Gyp's sleeve. A chill that felt like a cold
stream of water ran down Gyp's spine.

"I don't get on to what you're after, Miss what-ever-your name is, but
you're in the wrong pew. _I_ never knew a Miss Gray that I can remember
and I guess somebody's been kidding you."

Pat suddenly found her tongue--in the nick of time, too, for a paralysis
of fright had finished poor Gyp.

"We must have made a mistake, Mr. Stratman. We are very sorry to have
bothered you. We are in search of a certain--party that--that has--a
white streak--in his hair."

"O-ho," the undertaker clapped his hand to his head. "So _that's_ the
ticket, hey? Well, I've always said I couldn't get away from much with
that thing always there to identify me--but I never calculated it'd
expose me to any proposals!" He laughed again--doubling up in what Pat
thought a disgustingly ungraceful way. She held her head high and pushed
Gyp toward the door. "We will say good-by," she concluded haughtily.

"Say, kids, who are you, anyway?" His tone was quite unprofessional.

"It is not necessary to divulge our identity," and with Gyp's arm firmly
in her grasp Pat beat a hasty retreat. Safe outside in the corridor they