If it hadn’t been for puttin’ myself in the quitter class I’d laid off Sunday night.  But I just couldn’t do that.  So we stands another siege.  No use tryin’ to describe it.  Cousin Myra’s tactics are too sleuthy.  Just one jab after another, with them darnin’-needle eyes addin’ the fine touches.

But this time Vee only smiles back at her and never answers once.  Why, even Auntie takes up a couple of Myra’s little slams and debates the point with her enthusiastic.  Nothing from Vee, though.  I don’t understand it a bit until it’s all over, and Vee follows me out into the hall and helps me find my hat.  Quite careless, she shuts the door behind us.

“Whew!” says I.  “Some grouch, Cousin Myra!  What is it—­shootin’ pains in the disposition?”

Vee snickers.  “Did you mind very much, Torchy?” she asks.

“Me?” says I.  “Oh, I was brought up on roasts—­never knew much else.  But, I must say, I was gettin’ a bit hot on your account.”

“Don’t,” says she.  “You see, I know all about Cousin Myra—­why she’s like that, I mean.”

“On a diet of mixed pickles and sour milk, is she?” says I—­“or what?”

No, it wasn’t anything so simple as that.  It was a case of a romance that got ditched.  Seems that Myra’d been engaged once.  No idle seashore snap runnin’ from Fourth of July to Labor Day, but a long-winded, year-to-year affair.  The party of the second part was one Hinckley, a young highbrow who knew so much that it took the college faculty a long time to discover that he was worth more’n an assistant bartender and almost as much as a fourth-rate movie actor.  Then, too, Myra’s father had something lingerin’ the matter with him, and wouldn’t let anybody manage him but her.  Hymen hobbled by both hind feet, as you might say.

They was keepin’ at it well, though, each bearin’ up patient and waitin’ for the happy day, when Myra’s younger sister came home from boardin’-school and begun her campaign by practisin’ on the Professor, just because he happened to be handy.  She was a sweet young thing with cheek dimples and a trilly laugh, and—­well, you can guess the rest.  Only, when little sister has made a complete hash of things, she skips merrily off and marries a prominent ’varsity quarter-back who has water on the knee and the promise of a nine-dollar-a-week job in uncle’s stove works.

Course, Myra really should have made it up when Professor Hinckley finally does come crabbin’ around with another ring and a sad-eyed alibi.  But she wouldn’t—­not her.  Besides, father had begun takin’ mud baths and experimentin’ with climates.