asylum. But I
mind the time when Luigi was the wan b'y for you--I wonder, now, you
couldn't like him, Aileen? He's so handsome and stiddy-like, an' doin'
so well. Jim says he'll be one of the rich men of the town if he kapes
on as he's begun. They do say as how Dulcie Caukins'll be cuttin' you
out."

"I didn't love him, Maggie; that's reason enough." She spoke shortly.
Maggie turned again from her work to look down on her in amazement.

"You was always that way, Aileen!" she exclaimed impatiently, "thinkin'
nobody but a lord was good enough for you, an' droppin' Luigi as soon as
ever you got in with the Van Ostend folks; and as for 'love'--let me
give you as good a piece of advice as you'll get between the risin' of a
May sun and its settin':--if you see a good man as loves you an' is
willin' to marry you, take him, an' don't you leave him the chanct to
get cool over it. Ye'll love him fast enough if he's good to you--like
my Jim," she added proudly.

"Oh, your Jim! You're always quoting him; he isn't quite perfection even
if he is 'your Jim.'"

"An' is it parfection ye're after?" Maggie was apt in any state of
excitement to revert in her speech to the vernacular. "'Deed an' ye'll
look till the end of yer days an' risk dyin' a downright old maid, if
it's parfection ye're after marryin' in a man! An' I don't need a gell
as has niver been married to tell me my Jim ain't parfection nayther!"

Maggie resumed her work in a huff; Aileen smiled to herself.

"I didn't mean to say anything against your husband, Maggie; I was only
speaking in a general way."

"An' how could ye mane anything against me husband in a gineral or a
purticular way? Sure I know he's got a temper; an' what man of anny
sinse hasn't, I'd like to know? An' he's not settled-like to work in
anny wan place, as I'd like to have him be. But Jim's young; an' a man,
he says, can't settle to anny regular work before he's thirty. He says
all the purfessional men can't get onto their feet in a business way
till they be thirty; an' stone-cuttin', Jim says, is his purfession like
as if 't was a lawyer's or a doctor's or a priest's; an' Jim says he
loves it. An' there ain't a better worker nor Jim in the sheds, so the
boss says; an' if he will querrel between whiles--an' I'm not denyin' he
don't--it's sure the other man's fault for doin' something mane; Jim
can't stand no maneness. He's a good worker, is Jim, an' a good husband,
an' a lovin' father, an' a good p