get up so close to him that he couldn't _hit_ me or have a door
locked between us. It's strange how the thought of taking a beating from
a man can make a woman's heart jump. Mine jumped so it was hard to look
as meek as I felt best under the circumstances; but I looked it out from
under my lashes cautiously.

"There you are, Mrs. Molly," he said briskly as he handed me this book.
"Get weighed and measured and sized-up generally in the morning and
follow all the directions. Also make every record I have noted so that
I can have the proper data to help you as you go along--or rather down.
And if you will be faithful about it to me, or rather Al, I think we can
be sure of buttoning that blue muslin dress without even the aid of the
button-hook." His voice had the "if you can" note in it that always sets
me off.

"Had we better get the kiddie some thinner night-rigging?" he hastened
to ask as I was just about to explode. He knows the signs.

"Thank you, Doctor Moore! I hate the very ground you walk on and I'll
attend to those night-clothes myself to-morrow," I answered, and I
sailed out of that office and down the path toward my own house beyond
his hedge. But I carried this book tight in my hand and I made up my
mind that I would do it all if it killed me. I would show him I could be
_faithful_--to whom I would decide later on. But I hadn't read far
into this book when I committed myself to myself like that!

I don't know just how long I sat on the front steps all by myself bathed
in a perfect flood of moonlight and loneliness. It was not a bit of
comfort to hear Aunt Adeline snoring away in her room down the dark
hall. It takes the greatest congeniality to make a person's snoring a