.

Here was a man who was married, yet in a real sense who had no wife.
Suppose that man cared for her, what a tragedy it would be for them to
be kept apart! This man did not love her, and so there was no tragedy
for both. Still all was not over yet--yes, all was "over and over
and over," she said to herself as she sprang to her feet with a sharp
exclamation of disgust--with herself.

Her mother was coming hurriedly towards her from the house. There was
a quickness in her walk suggesting excitement, yet from the look in her
face it was plain that the news she brought was not painful. "He told me
you were here, and--"

"Who told you I was here?"

"Mr. Bulrush."

"So it's all settled," she said, with a little quirk of her shoulders.

"Yes, he's asked her, and they're going to be married. It's enough to
make you die laughing to see the two middle-aged doves cooing in there."

"I thought perhaps it would be you. He said he would like to be a father
to me."

"That would prevent me if nothing else would," answered the widow of
Tyndall Tynan. "A stepfather to an unmarried girl, both eyeing each
other for a chance to find fault--if you please, no thank you!"

"That means you won't get married till I'm out of the way?" asked Kitty,
with a look which was as much touched with myrrh as with mirth.

"It means I wouldn't get married till you are married, anyway," was the
complacent answer.

"Is there any one special that--"

"Don't talk nonsense. Since your father died I've only thought of his
child and mine, and I've not looked where I might. Instead, I've done
my best to prove that two women could live and succeed without a man
to earn for them; though of course without the pension it couldn't have
been done in the style we've done it. We've got our place!"

There is a dignity attached to a pension which has an influence quite
its own, and in the most primitive communities it has an aristocratic
character which commands general respect. In Askatoon people gave Mrs.
Tynan a better place socially because of her pension than they would
have done if she had earned double the money which the pension brought
her.

"Everybody has called on us," she added with reflective pride.

"Principally since Mr. Crozier came," added Kitty. "It's funny, isn't
it, how he made people respect him before they knew who he was?"

"He would make Satan stand up and take off his hat, if he paid Hades a
visit," said Mrs. Tynan admiringly. "A