, you have, making love to
me after running round with that wretched hussy!"

"She ain't a hussy!" denied the exasperated Racey, who was always
loyal to absent friends. "She's all right. Just because she happens to
be a lookout in the Happy Heart ain't anything against her. It don't
give you nor anybody else license to insult her."

This was too much. Not content with confessing his friendship for the
girl, he was standing up for her. Molly whirled upon him.

"Go!" Tone and business could not have been excelled by Peg Woffington
herself.

Racey went.

"What's the matter?" queried a sleepy voice from the doorway giving
into an inner room, as Racey's spurred heels jingled past the
washbench. "What's goin' on? Who was here? What you yelling about,
anyway?"

"Racey was here, Ma," said Molly.

"Seems to me you made an uncommon racket about it," grumbled her
mother, plodding into the kitchen in her slippers.

Her gray hair was all in strings about her face. Her eyes and cheeks
were puffed with sleep. She had pulled a quilt round her shoulders
over her nightdress. Now she gave the quilt a hitch up and sat down in
a chair.

"Make me a cup o' coffee, will you, Molly?" said Mrs. Dale. "My head
aches sort of. I hope you didn't have a fight with Racey Dawson."

"Well, we didn't quite agree," admitted Molly, snapping shut the cover
of the coffee-mill and clamping the mill between her knees. "I don't
like him any more, Ma."

"And after he's helped us so! I was counting on him to fix up this
mortgage business! Whatever's got into you, Molly?"

"He's been running round with that awful lookout girl at the Happy
Heart."

"Is that all?" yawned Mrs. Dale, greatly relieved. "I thought it might
have been something serious."

"It is serious! What right has he to--"

"Why hasn't he? You ain't engaged to him."

"I know I'm not, but he--I--you--" Molly began to flounder.

"Has he ever told you he loved you?" Mrs. Dale inquired, shrewdly.

"Not in so many words, but--"

"But you know he does. Well, so do I know he does. I knew it soon as
you did--before, most likely. Don't you fret, Molly, he'll come back."

"No, he won't. Not now. I don't want him to."

"Then who's to fix up this mortgage business with Tweezy, I'd like
to know? I declare, I wish I'd taken that lawyer's offer. We'd have
something then, anyhow. Now we'll have to get out without a nickel.
Oh, Molly, what did you quarrel with Racey for?"

CHAPTER