ten o'clock next morning Janet McFadden was at the door asking for
Rosie. Rosie did not, of course, ever care to see Janet again, but as
she had come Rosie could scarcely deny herself.

She found her one-time friend looking pinched and
worried--conscience-stricken, no doubt--and little wonder.

"I'm going to the grocery, Janet. Do you want to come with me?"

Hardly outside the gate, Janet began: "You're not mad at me, Rosie, are
you?"

"Mad?" Rosie spoke the word as if it were one with which she was
unfamiliar.

"I didn't think you'd care, Rosie, honest I didn't. I thought you'd
understand."

"Understand what?" There was a certain coldness in the tone of Rosie's
inquiry, and Janet, feeling it, seemed ready to wring her hands in
despair.

"Why, Rosie, all we talked about was you--honest it was! Jarge said you
were just like his own little sister to him, and I told him I loved you
more than I would my own sister if I had one."

"Huh!" Rosie grunted, recalling the tilt of Janet's black sailor hat
over George's shoulder. It had looked then as if they were talking about
her, hadn't it now?

"Honest, Rosie!"

"Yes, of course. I suppose now you were talking about me when you----"
Rosie pursed her lips and Janet, understanding her meaning, blushed
guiltily.

"Aw, now, Rosie, listen: all I wanted was to have Tom Sullivan see."

"Well, he saw all right. So did I. So did everybody. And it was
disgraceful, too!"

Janet groped helplessly about for words. "I don't exactly mean on
account of Tom himself."

"Oh!"

"Please, Rosie," Janet begged; "don't talk to me that way.... You know
Tom's mother, my Aunt Kitty. You know the way she makes fun of me
because I'm ugly and lanky. She's always saying that I'm an old maid
already and that I'll never get a boy to look at me. So I just wanted
her to hear about a nice fella like Jarge Riley hugging me and kissing
me."

Rosie looked at Janet in astonishment. She had certainly expected Janet
to make up a better story than that.

"Well, I must say, Janet McFadden, this is news to me! Since when have
you got so particular about what your Aunt Kitty thinks or doesn't
think? I always supposed she was beneath your contemp'."

"No, no, Rosie, it isn't that! I don't care what she thinks or what she
says either, if only she wouldn't go blabbing it around everywhere!"
With a sudden gust of passion, Janet clenched her hands and breathed
hard. "Oh, how I hate her!"

Rosie had not