“You can have all that and more,” he cried exultingly.

Virginia shrugged her shoulders.  The topic was becoming distasteful to her.  Impatiently she exclaimed: 

“It’s perfectly ridiculous!”

Going over to her sister, Fanny put her arm around her neck: 

“All I want is for you to be happy, sis.”

“I know it, dear,” replied Virginia.  “That’s the way you’ve been always.”

“You’re different to me,” went on the elder sister.

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.  You’d do any man credit.”

“Oh, Fanny!”

“But I’d hate to see you try to keep house on eighteen per.  That means doing your own work, including the cooking—­yes, and the washing—­and you weren’t made for that.”

“Don’t worry about me—­I’ll be all right.”

“I hope so,” sighed Fanny.

“I will, don’t fear,” smiled Virginia.

Not yet discouraged the shipping clerk returned to the attack.  Folding his arms in authoritative fashion and addressing his future sister-in-law he said severely: 

“Will you give me a straight answer to a plain question?  If Mr. Stafford does ask you to marry him, will you?  Come on, now, will you?”

“I won’t talk about such things,” retorted the girl.

Her face flushed up.  It was easy to see that she was getting angry.  Shrugging his shoulders, the young man walked away, but sarcastically he said: 

“Well, if he does and you don’t accept him, you’ll be the biggest fool that ever lived!”

“That’s just what I say,” laughed Fanny.  “Ha!  I wish he’d ask me!”

Quickly Virginia turned to her sister.

“Would you accept him?” she asked.

“Would I?” laughed Fanny.  “Oh, would I?”

“And throw Jimmie over?”

“I’d throw Jimmie so far and so hard he’d think he was struck by a cyclone.”

“And I wouldn’t blame her,” said the young man, scratching his head.

Virginia looked in amazement from one to the other.

“I can’t understand either of you,” she exclaimed.

Never at a loss for an answer the clerk proceeded to explain: 

“Why should I expect any girl to stick to me and fourteen per when she can have a place like this?  Look at this swell furniture, these rugs, and them ornaments—­” Going, over to the mantelpiece, he picked up one of the costly Peach Blow vases, examined it critically for a moment and turned to the girls:  “I suppose this is one of them peach—­peach—­something or other—­vases I’ve read about.”

“Peach Blow,” corrected Virginia.

“That’s it,” he grinned.  “I suppose it’s worth six or seven thousand dollars—­”

“Be careful!” exclaimed Virginia warningly, “or you’ll drop it.”

The words were hardly uttered when Jimmie’s foot caught in the rug and he stumbled, dropping the vase, which broke into two pieces.  Bewildered, horrified, he stood still, surveying with dismay the fragments at his feet.