quite plain to you?"

"Oh, it's good and plain," responded Weary. "But for the Lord's sake
don't take up that talking in italics like Myrt does. I can't stand
this bearing down hard on every other word. It sets my teeth all on
edge."

The schoolma'am opened her eyes wider. Was it possible Weary was
acquiring an irritable temper? "_Second_," she went on deliberately,
"I do not _consider_ that I have been _mean_ to you; and if I _have_ it
is because I _choose_ to be so."

Weary, observing a most flagrant accent, shut his lips rather tightly
together.

"Third--let me see. Oh, that about the _dances_; I can only say that
we _women_, as a means of _self-defence_, claim the privilege of
_effacing_ undesirable, would-be partners by a certain _form_ of
rejection, which _eliminates_ the necessity of going into unpleasant
_details_, and--er--lets the fellow down easy." The schoolma'am's
emphasis and English seemed to collapse together, but Weary did not
notice that.

"I'm sure grateful to be let down easy," he said softly, without
looking up; his head was bent so that his hat quite concealed from the
schoolma'am his face, but if she had known him longer, perhaps she
would have gone carefully after that.

"As to your sneaking away from--wherever it was--surely, you ought to
know about that better than I do. One must go far to outdistance