Checkers hardly knew what to say. "I 'm a great admirer of girls in general," he replied, after a moment's hesitation, "and they 've always struck me as being a mighty nice thing to kind of have around. But I 've had very little experience with them--that is, at least, in the last two years." The truth was, that the friends with whom Checkers had gone to live in Chicago, after his mother's death, had been people of true worth and refinement. They were poor--a widowed mother and two daughters--and the liberal sum which Checkers insisted upon paying them for his monthly maintenance was to them a matter of grateful benefit. But they, in return, had exercised a restraining influence over him; had taught him to be courteous and gentlemanly, deferential to his elders, and respectful toward women, or, at least to maintain such an outward semblance, which answered all general purposes. He had conceived a boyish adoration for the elder daughter, four years his senior, which had aided her materially in her influence over him for good. And it was only as he began to realize the utter hopelessness of his passion, and at the same time found himself being supplanted by the bearded man who some months after married her and took her away, that he grew dissatisfied with working and found the excitement that he craved in racing and kindred gambling devices. For several years he had lived this life, gradually growing hard and careless. But now that he found himself once more an inmate of a respectable family circle, he resumed his gentleness of manner, as it had been a half-forgotten rôle. "I had been keeping the girls as a little surprise for him, Aunt Deb," said Arthur rather reproachfully. "To meet a girl who has been described to you is like listening to a joke which is told point first." "I warrant he 'll find plenty to be interested in after he meets them, for all we may tell him," replied Aunt Deb. "Yes," said Mr. Kendall, "there is something about each girl one meets a little different from any other. At least it was so when I was a boy. I never found any two quite alike." "I never found one alike any two times," said Arthur, very feelingly; "but their uncertainty, I suppose, is their charm. Come, let's go out and loaf under the trees." "Thank God, Sunday comes once a week," said Checkers. "I could stand two a week without straining myself." "The girls are to be home Friday," said Arthur. "Friday night we 'll go down and call, if you'd like to." "Tickled to death," said Checkers. "Sadie will probably stay with Pert a while, as her father, Judge Martin, has gone to Texas, and won't be back for a couple of weeks. Sadie's mother is dead, you know, and she and the old man are all alone. By the way, the Judge is rich, and Sadie is rich in her own right, too." "That settles it, Sadie dear; you 're mine. A fortune-teller told me I 'd marry a rich girl." "Better see her before you marry her, had n't you?" suggested Arthur.