"Da," she began, "the devil must have had a fine laugh to himself when
he saw the Lord puttin' a tongue in a woman's head. Did ye hear me
to-day, talking along about that purty young thing beyant, and Rance
Belmont takin' in every word of it? Sure and I never thought of him
bein' here until I noticed the look on that ugly mug of his, and mind
you, Da, there's people that call him good-lookin' with that heavy jowl
of his and the hair on him growin' the wrong way on his head, and them
black eyes of his the color of the dirt in the road. They do say he's
just got a bunch of money from the old country, and he's cuttin' a wide
swath with it. If I'd kept me mouth shut he'd have gone on to Brandon
and never knowed a word about there being a purty young thing near. But
I watched him hitchin' up, and didn't he drive right over there; and I
tell you, Da, he means no good."

"Don't worry, Maggie," John Corbett said, soothingly. "He can't pick
her up and run off with her. Mrs. Fred's no fool."

"He's a divil!" Maggie declared with conviction. "Mind you, Da, there
ain't many that can put the comaudher on me, but Rance Belmont done it
once."

Mr. Corbett looked up with interest and waited for her to speak.

"It was about the card-playin'. You know I've never allowed a card in
me house since I had a house, and never intended to, but the last day
Rance Belmont was here--that was away last spring, when you were away--
he begins to play with one of the boys that was in for dinner. Right in
there on the sewin'-machine in plain sight of all of us I saw them, and
I wiped me hands and tied up me apron, and I walked in, and says I,