“We’ve no time for questions, Evelina, now—­go back to your tatting—­hey?” He answered me as he began to buttonhole the Crag and lead him down the steps.

“Dodson is the man who is laying down and contracting for the line across the river, Evelina,” answered Cousin James without taking any notice whatever of Uncle Peter’s squelching of me.  “If this other line can just be secured he will have to come to our terms—­and the situation will be saved.”  As he spoke he took my hand in his and led me at his side, down the front walk to the gate, talking as he went, for Uncle Peter was chuckling on ahead like a steam tug in a hurry.

“And the shades of Henry will again assume the maintenance of his family,” I hazarded with lack of respect of the dead, impudence to Cousin James about his own affairs, and unkindness by implication to Sallie, who loves me better than almost anybody in the world does.  And I got my just punishment by seeing a lovely look of tender concern rise in Cousin James’s eyes as he stopped short in the middle of the walk.

“I want to go back a minute to speak to Sallie before I go on down town,” he said, quickly, and before Uncle Peter’s remonstrances had exploded, he had taken the steps two at a bound and disappeared in the front door.

“Sooner he marries that lazy lollypop the better,” fumed Uncle Peter, as he waited at the gate.  “The way for a man to quench his thirst for woman-sweets is to marry a pot of honey like that, and then come right on back to the bread and butter game.  Here’s a letter Jasper gave me to bring along for you from town.  Go on and read it and do not disturb the workings of my brain while I wait for James—­workings of a great brain—­hey?”

I took the letter and hurried across the street because I wanted anyway to get to some place by myself and think.  There was no earthly reason for it but I felt like an animal that has been hurt and wants to go off and lick its wounds.  A womanly woman that lives a lovely appealing life right in a man’s own home has a perfect right to gain his love, especially if she is beautifully unconscious of her appeal.  Besides, why should a man want to take an independent, explosive, impudent firebrand with all sorts of dreadful plots in her mind to his heart?  He wouldn’t and doesn’t!

There is no better sedative for a woman’s disturbed and wounded emotions than a little stiff brain work.  Richard’s letter braced my viny drooping of mind at once and from thinking into the Crag’s affairs of sentiment, I turned with masculine vigor to begin to mix into his affairs of finance.  However, I wish that the first big business letter I ever got in my life hadn’t had to have a strain of love interest running through it!  Still Dickie is a trump card in the man pack.