She stood still, disengaged her arm from his, and, with the air of a dressmaking expert, drew the sides of the coat’s rent together. “Why, this isn’t a tear,” she went on, “it’s a cut! A clean cut! How ever did you do it?” She loosed her hold on the sides of the cut and the released sections of cloth opened again. So did the cut shirt-sleeve beneath them, revealing the angry red welt, like a whiplash mark, on the hard, bronzed flesh of Dad’s upper arm. “James Brinton!” she accused sternly. “You’ve been fighting again!” “Yessum!” he confessed, hanging his head. Once more, this time in swift solicitude, she was parting the rents in coat and shirt, and her cool, light fingers were on the burning hot flesh of the welt. With the true nurse’s deftness she explored the injury, sighing with happy relief on finding it so trivial. “Tell me about it,” she demanded. Briefly, he told her; keen shame possessing him as he related, as modestly as possible, his exploit. She had taken his arm again, and as he talked they resumed their sauntering stroll. When his recital was finished she pressed his arm tightly for an instant in silence. Then-- “Oh, I thank the dear Lord!” she breathed. “He brought you back safe!” Dad’s other hand closed over hers as it lay on his arm. “Back to--to you,” he said softly. And for a space they fell silent once more. But their walk waxed slower and his hand did not release hers. “Emily,” said Dad, at last, speaking with a rush, as one who fears his courage may desert him at any moment, “I guess you know how much I care. It’s--it’s just everything. I can’t put it in any prettier words, because it means so much. Will--will you marry me?” She looked up at him, her eyes big and dewy. “Why, of course, James,” she made answer in gentle wonder. “I thought you knew that.” Regardless of the distant nurses, regardless of possible onlookers from the scattered wayside houses, Dad stopped stock-still, gathered her into his arms, then stooped and kissed her. She raised her lips to his and smiled tenderly up at him. Then of a sudden she drew back in ostentatious haste. “There!” she declared vehemently. “It’s true there’s no fool like an old fool. Here I am, a woman with a married daughter, making a spectacle of myself in a public street. Shame on me! And shame on you, too, Jim Brinton!” “I never dreamed,” said Dad, “that shame could be such a nice thing. But you’re wrong about one thing, dearie. About our being old. For a lot of years I’ve been looking on myself as an old man. And now I know I’m not. I’m just a man. And as for you, Emily--why, I don’t believe you’d know how to be old if you lived to be a million.” She laughed gayly, in dainty, old-world coquetry. “I guess you’ve had plenty of practise in making cute speeches like that, James,” she said, “You do it awful easy.”