said heartily, slamming the door behind him, and by a series of pokes in
the ribs genially backing his host into his own sitting-room. "I'm up,
too, and am here to see Nellie. She's here, eh--of course?" he added,
darting a quick look at Burnham.

But Mr. Burnham was one of those large, liberal Western husbands who
classified his household under the general title of "woman folk," for
the integers of which he was not responsible. He hesitated, and then
propounded over the balusters to the upper story the direct query--

"You don't happen to have Nellie Wynn up there, do ye?"

There was an interval of inquiry proceeding from half a dozen reluctant
throats, more or less cottony and muffled, in those various degrees
of grievance and mental distress which indicate too early roused
young womanhood. The eventual reply seemed to be affirmative, albeit
accompanied with a suppressed giggle, as if the young lady had just been
discovered as an answer to an amusing conundrum.

"All right," said Wynn, with an apparent accession of boisterous
geniality. "Tell her I must see her, and I've only got a few minutes to
spare. Tell her to slip on anything and come down; there's no one here
but myself, and I've shut the front door on Brother Burnham. Ha, ha!"
and suiting the action to the word, he actually bundled the admiring
Brother Burnham out on his own doorstep. There was a light pattering on
the staircase, and Nellie Wynn, pink with sleep, very tall, very slim,
hastily draped in a white counterpane with a blue border and a general
classic suggestion, slipped into the parlor. At the same moment her
father shut the door behind her, placed one hand on the knob, and with
the other seized her wrist.