Tom chuckled, but held the peace by hiding his face in his coffee
cup. Sarah, though checked by this flank attack, was herself an
old hand in the art. So temporary was the setback that she
scarcely paused ere hurling her assault from a new angle.

"An' marryin' so quick, all of a sudden, eh? If that ain't
suspicious, nothin' is. I don't know what young women's comin'
to. They ain't decent, I tell you. They ain't decent. That's what
comes of Sunday dancin' an' all the rest. Young women nowadays
are like a lot of animals. Such fast an' looseness I never saw. . . ."

Saxon was white with anger, but while Sarah wandered on in her
diatribe, Tom managed to wink privily and prodigiously at his
sister and to implore her to help in keeping the peace.

"It's all right, kid sister," he comforted Saxon when they were
alone. "There's no use talkin' to Sarah. Bill Roberts is a good
boy. I know a lot about him. It does you proud to get him for a
husband. You're bound to be happy with him . . ." His voice sank,
and his face seemed suddenly to be very old and tired as he went
on anxiously. "Take warning from Sarah. Don't nag. Whatever you
do, don't nag. Don't give him a perpetual-motion line of chin.
Kind of let him talk once in a while. Men have some horse sense,
though Sarah don't know it. Why, Sarah actually loves me, though
she don't make a noise like it. The thing for you is to love your
husband, and, by thunder, to make a noise of lovin' him, too. And
then you can kid him into doing 'most anything you want. Let him
have his way once in a while, and he'll let you have yourn. But
you just go on lovin' him, and leanin' on his judgement--he's no