“Yes,” sneered Zoie, having regained sufficient strength to stagger to her feet, “he's done a lot, hasn't he?” And then forgetting that her original adventure with Jimmy which had brought about such disastrous results was still unknown to Aggie and Alfred, she concluded bitterly, “All this would never have happened, if it hadn't been for Jimmy and his horrid old luncheon.” Jimmy was startled. This was too much, and just as he had seemed to be well out of complications for the remainder of his no doubt short life. He turned to bolt for the door but Aggie's eyes were upon him. “Luncheon?” exclaimed Aggie and she regarded him with a puzzled frown. Zoie's hand was already over her lips, but too late. Recovering from his somewhat bewildering sense of loss, Alfred, too, was now beginning to sit up and take notice. “What luncheon?” he demanded. Zoie gazed from Alfred to Aggie, then at Jimmy, then resolving to make a clean breast of the matter, she sidled toward Alfred with her most ingratiating manner. “Now, Alfred,” she purred, as she endeavoured to act one arm about his unsuspecting neck, “if you'll only listen, I'll tell you the REAL TRUTH.” A wild despairing cry from Alfred, a dash toward the door by Jimmy, and a determined effort on Aggie's part to detain her spouse, temporarily interrupted Zoie's narrative. But in spite of these discouragements, Zoie did eventually tell Alfred the real truth, and before the sun had risen on the beginning of another day, she had added to her confession, promises whose happy fulfillment was evidenced for many years after by the chatter of glad young voices, up and down the stairway of Alfred's new suburban home, and the flutter of golden curls in and out amongst the sunlight and shadows of his ample, well kept grounds. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Baby Mine, by Margaret Mayo