Frona nodded her head vigorously.

“Thin it’s yer ownself afther all?  The little motherless darlin’, with the goold hair I combed the knots out iv many’s the time?  The little witch that run barefoot an’ barelegged over all the place?”

“Yes, yes,” she corroborated, gleefully.

“The little divil that stole the dog-team an’ wint over the Pass in the dead o’ winter for to see where the world come to an ind on the ither side, just because old Matt McCarthy was afther tellin’ her fairy stories?”

“O Matt, dear old Matt!  Remember the time I went swimming with the Siwash girls from the Indian camp?”

“An’ I dragged ye out by the hair o’ yer head?”

“And lost one of your new rubber boots?”

“Ah, an’ sure an’ I do.  And a most shockin’ an’ immodest affair it was!  An’ the boots was worth tin dollars over yer father’s counter.”

“And then you went away, over the Pass, to the Inside, and we never heard a word of you.  Everybody thought you dead.”

“Well I recollect the day.  An’ ye cried in me arms an’ wuddent kiss yer old Matt good-by.  But ye did in the ind,” he exclaimed, triumphantly, “whin ye saw I was goin’ to lave ye for sure.  What a wee thing ye were!”

“I was only eight.”

“An’ ’tis twelve year agone.  Twelve year I’ve spint on the Inside, with niver a trip out.  Ye must be twinty now?”

“And almost as big as you,” Frona affirmed.

“A likely woman ye’ve grown into, tall, an’ shapely, an’ all that.”  He looked her over critically.  “But ye cud ‘a’ stood a bit more flesh, I’m thinkin’.”

“No, no,” she denied.  “Not at twenty, Matt, not at twenty.  Feel my arm, you’ll see.”  She doubled that member till the biceps knotted.

“’Tis muscle,” he admitted, passing his hand admiringly over the swelling bunch; “just as though ye’d been workin’ hard for yer livin’.”

“Oh, I can swing clubs, and box, and fence,” she cried, successively striking the typical postures; “and swim, and make high dives, chin a bar twenty times, and—­and walk on my hands.  There!”

“Is that what ye’ve been doin’?  I thought ye wint away for book-larnin’,” he commented, dryly.

“But they have new ways of teaching, now, Matt, and they don’t turn you out with your head crammed—­”

“An’ yer legs that spindly they can’t carry it all!  Well, an’ I forgive ye yer muscle.”

“But how about yourself, Matt?” Frona asked.  “How has the world been to you these twelve years?”

“Behold!” He spread his legs apart, threw his head back, and his chest out.  “Ye now behold Mister Matthew McCarthy, a king iv the noble Eldorado Dynasty by the strength iv his own right arm.  Me possessions is limitless.  I have more dust in wan minute than iver I saw in all me life before.  Me intintion for makin’ this trip to the States is to look up me ancestors.  I have a firm belafe