"'Yet I am strong and lusty,'" finished Sue. "Of course you are, dad,
and you don't look old, either. Why," gazing up at him critically, "you
don't look a day over forty!"

"Don't try to bamboozle your Pa, Susie," laughed Rushford. "I can see
through you! You'll be trying to make me believe next that you want a
stepmother."

"I would if it would make you any happier, dad."

Her father gazed down for an instant into her pseudo-serious face, then
caught her in his arms and squeezed her.

"What're you up to?" he demanded. "Trying to make a fool of your old
dad? Why, Susie, own up,--you'd scratch out the eyes of the best woman
in the world if she dared to look twice at me!"

"Of course I would!" admitted Susie, instantly. "You know as well as I
do, dad, that even the best woman in the world isn't good enough for
you."

"Let's go across to the other hotel, dad," suggested Nell, with a
nonchalance intended to conceal the fact that this was the point she and
Susie had been aiming at from the very first.

Her father released Susie and stared at his other daughter in amazement.

"What on earth for?" he demanded.