“‘Twas durin’ the time iv the candle famine at Forty Mile.  Cold snap on, an’ Dave slides into me shack to pass the time o’ day, and glues his eyes on me case iv condensed milk.  ’How’d ye like a sip iv Moran’s good whiskey?’ he sez, eyin’ the case iv milk the while.  I confiss me mouth went wet at the naked thought iv it.  ’But what’s the use iv likin’?’ sez I, with me sack bulgin’ with emptiness.’  ’Candles worth tin dollars the dozen,’ sez he, ’a dollar apiece.  Will ye give six cans iv milk for a bottle iv the old stuff?’ ‘How’ll ye do it?’ sez I.  ‘Trust me,’ sez he.  ’Give me the cans.  ‘Tis cold out iv doors, an’ I’ve a pair iv candle-moulds.’

“An’ it’s the sacred truth I’m tellin’ ye all, an’ if ye run across Bill Moran he’ll back me word; for what does Dave Harney do but lug off me six cans, freeze the milk into his candle-moulds, an’ trade them in to bill Moran for a bottle iv tanglefoot!”

As soon as he could be heard through the laughter, Harney raised his voice.  “It’s true, as McCarthy tells, but he’s only told you the half.  Can’t you guess the rest, Matt?”

Matt shook his head.

“Bein’ short on milk myself, an’ not over much sugar, I doctored three of your cans with water, which went to make the candles.  An’ by the bye, I had milk in my coffee for a month to come.”

“It’s on me, Dave,” McCarthy admitted. “’Tis only that yer me host, or I’d be shockin’ the ladies with yer nortorious disgraces.  But I’ll lave ye live this time, Dave.  Come, spade the partin’ guests; we must be movin’.”

“No ye don’t, ye young laddy-buck,” he interposed, as St. Vincent started to take Frona down the hill, “’Tis her foster-daddy sees her home this night.”

McCarthy laughed in his silent way and offered his arm to Frona, while St. Vincent joined in the laugh against himself, dropped back, and joined Miss Mortimer and Baron Courbertin.

“What’s this I’m hearin’ about you an’ Vincent?” Matt bluntly asked as soon as they had drawn apart from the others.

He looked at her with his keen gray eyes, but she returned the look quite as keenly.

“How should I know what you have been hearing?” she countered.

“Whin the talk goes round iv a maid an’ a man, the one pretty an’ the other not unhandsome, both young an’ neither married, does it ’token aught but the one thing?”

“Yes?”

“An’ the one thing the greatest thing in all the world.”

“Well?” Frona was the least bit angry, and did not feel inclined to help him.

“Marriage, iv course,” he blurted out. “’Tis said it looks that way with the pair of ye.”

“But is it said that it is that way?”

“Isn’t the looks iv it enough ?” he demanded.

“No; and you are old enough to know better.  Mr. St. Vincent and I—­we enjoy each other as friends, that is all.  But suppose it is as you say, what of it?”