ree-and-easy morals,
returned to the backs of the last couple to see whether their little
drama had completed itself. As she looked, the final act opened. The man
whispered something--from what happened when all the other men had
whispered something, Rosie decided he must be asking the girl if she
were chilly. She, like all others before her, presumably was, for the
man took off half his coat, the half near her, and drew it around her
shoulders. What became of his shirt-sleeved arm, or what, in fact,
thereafter became of the rest of both of them, no mere onlooker could
ever know. The half-coat, raising high its collar, served as an
effectual screen against the gaze of a curious world, and the only thing
left for a student of human nature was to hunt a new couple.

One of the marvels of a picnic boat is that there are always new
couples. Rosie found one immediately and was already engrossed in it
when Tom Sullivan, clutching her excitedly, cried out:

"Look! Look! Didn't I tell you!"

Rosie looked, and what she saw seemed for a moment to make her heart
stop. George Riley and Janet McFadden--think of it! How long the
exhibit had been going on Rosie knew not, but Tom Sullivan had
discovered them just as Janet's profile was rising and George's
descending. In another instant----

"There!" shouted Tom Sullivan in triumph. "Didn't I tell you so! Now you
can't say they're engaged!"

Rosie stood up hurriedly.

"This is a perfectly horrid boat and I wish I could get off! And I tell
you one thing, Tom Sullivan: I'm going downstairs. I won't stay up here
any longer. It's disgraceful, that's what it is!"

"Aw, don't go down!" Tom begged. "It's fun up here."

But Rosie was already started and Tom had to follow.

"Say, Rosie," he chuckled confidentially over her shoulder as she
climbed down to the next deck, "did you see old Janet? Gee! I bet it was
the first time a fella ever kissed her!"

Had Rosie seen old Janet? Yes, Rosie had, and the mere thought of the
perfidious creature sent Rosie hot and cold by turns. Oh, to think of
it! After all she had done for Janet out of the innocent kindness of her
heart, to have Janet face about and treat her so! Why, she was nothing
but a thief, a brazen thief!...

It was true that, in a sense, George did not belong to Rosie: he
belonged to Ellen O'Brien if Ellen would once make up her mind to
possess him; but as between Rosie and Janet he certainly belonged to
Rosie. And Janet knew i