asked her before this," he went on, "if that Wentworth hadn't butted
in. Who knows anything about him, anyway? I'll ask her this
afternoon." He stopped abruptly and smiled into the eyes of the girl
who was hurrying toward him down the aisle.

"Oh, Oskar, I've just got a minute. I stopped in to remind you that
this is Saturday, and we're going tobogganing this afternoon, and I've
asked Mr. Wentworth and some of the crowd, and there'll be four or five
toboggans, and it will be no end jolly. And this is my birthday, and
you're a dear to think of it and send me all those flowers, and I'm
going to wear 'em to-night. Listen, Elsie Campbell is giving a dinner
for me this evening and of course you're not invited because it's just
too funny the way she has snubbed you lately, and there's a show in
town and after dinner we're going. Of course it won't be any good, but
she's making a theatre party of it, and it sounds grand anyway. And I
must hurry along now because I must remind Dad that he promised me a
fur coat the day I was twenty-one, and I'll be back after a while and
you can help me pick it out. Good-by, see you later!" And she was
gone, leaving Hedin gazing after her with a smile as he strove to
digest the jumble of uncorrelated information of which she had
unburdened herself. "Wentworth, and some of the crowd! Oh, it will be
jolly, all right--damn Wentworth!"

Old John McNabb looked up from his papers as his daughter burst into
his private office and, rushing to his side, planted a kiss squarely
upon the top of his bald head. "I came in to tell you I'm twenty-one
to-day," she announced.

"Well, well, so ye are! Ye come into the world on the first of March,
true to the old sayin', an' ye've be'n boisterous ever since.