would have hastened to say so
yourself.

The customers at Bogle's were her slaves. Six tables full she could wait
upon at once. They who were in a hurry restrained their impatience for
the joy of merely gazing upon her swiftly moving, graceful figure. They
who had finished eating ate more that they might continue in the light
of her smiles. Every man there--and they were mostly men--tried to make
his impression upon her.

Aileen could successfully exchange repartee against a dozen at once. And
every smile that she sent forth lodged, like pellets from a scatter-gun,
in as many hearts. And all this while she would be performing
astounding feats with orders of pork and beans, pot roasts, ham-and,
sausage-and-the-wheats, and any quantity of things on the iron and in
the pan and straight up and on the side. With all this feasting and
flirting and merry exchange of wit Bogle's came mighty near being a
salon, with Aileen for its Madame Recamier.

If the transients were entranced by the fascinating Aileen, the
regulars were her adorers. There was much rivalry among many of the
steady customers. Aileen could have had an engagement every evening.
At least twice a week some one took her to a theatre or to a dance.
One stout gentleman whom she and Tildy had privately christened "The
Hog" presented her with a turquoise ring. Another one known as
"Freshy," who rode on the Traction Company's repair wagon, was going
to give her a poodle as soon as his brother got the hauling contract
in the Ninth. And the man who always ate spareribs and spinach and
said he was a stock broker asked her to go to "Parsifal" with him.

"I don't know where this place is," said Aileen while talking it over
with Tildy, "but the wedding-ring's got to be on before I put a
stitch into a travelling dress--ain't that right? Well, I guess!"

But, Tildy!

In steaming, chattering, cabbage-scented Bogle's there was almost a
heart tragedy. Tildy with the blunt nose, the hay-coloured hair, the
freckled skin, the bag-o'-meal figure, had never had an admirer. Not
a man followed her with his eyes when she went to and fro in the
restaurant save now and then when they glared with the beast-hunger
for food. None of them bantered her gaily to coquettish interchanges
of wit. None of them loudly "jollied" her of mornings as they did
Aileen, accusing her, when the eggs were slow in coming, of late
hours in the company of envied swains. No one had ever given her a
turquo