“‘There is no friend like the old friend, who has shared our morning days’ (and teething nights!)” “Please, Mr. Irving!” With a desperate wriggle, Betsy escaped, and moved swiftly around toward the back door of the cottage. “Did she refuse you?” called Nixie, as his friend stretched portentously, and then came on up the steps. “Absolutely.” “It must be a habit of hers,” remarked Mrs. Bruce. “Captain Salter has been returning to the charge for years, so I’ve heard lately.” “Great work!” declared Nixie with zest. “He looks like a sea-dog that can hold on. I must have some fun with the great and only Betsy.” “If you do,” remarked Irving lazily, “I’ll have some fun with you that will make you an interesting invalid for the rest of the summer.” “Highty-tighty!” exclaimed Nixie. “I believe sonny is in earnest, Mrs. Bruce.” “Doubtless,” she returned, with some bitterness. “Betsy has a true knight.” “I _am_ in earnest,” said Irving quietly. “Betsy’s private affairs are as much to be respected as your mother’s. Hands off.” “I spoke to her about the captain once,” said Mrs. Bruce. “He’d been as much as making love to her under my very eyes, and I put some innocent question, but—” the speaker shrugged her shoulders—“she snubbed me.” “Quite right,” said Irving promptly. “The man’s crazy,” declared Mrs. Bruce, “if he thinks Betsy could be persuaded to leave us, and go and drudge for him. Of course that’s all he wants her for; and she _is_ clever. She knows it.” “I don’t agree with you,” said Irving mildly. “Old Hiram’s in love with her. To his eyes she looks just the same as she did when they went to school together.” “He shall have her then!” ejaculated Nixie enthusiastically. “I shall make it my pleasure, in slight, unostentatious ways, to throw them together.” “Wretch!” exclaimed Mrs. Bruce. “Destroyer of homes! Do you want to give me nervous prostration?” “Did you ever try to throw Betsy anywhere she didn’t want to go?” inquired Irving. “That’s my comfort,” groaned Mrs. Bruce. “She looked at Captain Salter as if she could eat him when he told us what he had named the boat.” Nixie laughed. “She’s a character, isn’t she? I’m not far from in love with her myself.” CHAPTER XXI A RAINY EVENING THE various and sundry hatchets which had been brandished in the mental atmosphere between the natural guardians of those two heroes, Irving Bruce and Robert Nixon, were all decently buried by the time the Yellowstone party were about to be reunited at Fairport. Mrs. Bruce had quite the glow of a hostess as she placed flowers in the rooms of the expected ones; and Mrs. Nixon had invited the Bruce household, of which her son was to continue to be one, to dine with them at the inn on the evening of their arrival. They had a cosy corner of the dining-room to themselves when the time came.