"Wants to get his can beat off, eh?" remarked Beatty, carelessly; "well, what-oh-what does my little girlie want worst, right now?" "Breakfast," replied Daisy, plumply; ducking roguishly to avoid the caress her questioner, imagining _that_ was the thing she "wanted worst," sought to bestow. "A-all right," said Beatty, swallowing his pique; "we'll go and see if they can scare us up some poached-two-on, right now. Then 'm going to take my baby out an' show her the best time _she_ ever had, in all her young life--eh?" "M'h'm," murmured Daisy, smiling to herself, as she followed her companion into the dining-room. Breakfast that morning was a notable affair, a milestone in Daisy Nixon's days. Not because there was anything novel or striking about the garniture of the Imperial Hotel dining-room, which was a plain homely place, differing little from the eating-room of the Jubilee House in Toddburn--but because there hummed, and called, and clanged, and whistled through the open windows the multitudinous sounds of this new urban life into which she had, as it were, plunged headlong. Daisy listened absently to Beatty's chatter, conceding him an occasional dimple or smile; but otherwise almost forgot him until, as the meal ended, he laid his hand, hot and moist, over hers, and said: "Well, how does my little-one feel about it now?" Daisy glanced down at his white-pored hand, with its cigarette-yellowed finger-tips and outstanding blue veins. Then she looked up at him, and leaned one pretty cheek coaxingly close. "You's baby feels ashamed in this old waist and skirt and hat," she said, softly; "ain't you going to get her some nice things to be married in?" Beatty's hand squeezed hers. "Your Freddie sure will do that for you," he said. "Let's go upstairs now, and figure out what we'll need." Daisy suffered him to pull her out of her chair by the hand he held. Still retaining it, he led her out of the dining-room, along the hall, and up the stairway. At the top, she halted--fetching her companion, who had kept right on going, to a standstill with a jerk. "Come on, come on," he said, making his tone matter-of-course, "the room is No. 19." "What's the number of _my_ room?" said Daisy, regarding him pleasantly but with a kind of odd under-gleam in her eyes. "Y--your room!" Even Beatty, the inured, was embarrassed by that searching, direct look. "Why, I--I--darned if I remember the number." Daisy continued to look at him a moment; then the shine in her eyes was succeeded by a twinkle, and this by a promising, coaxing side-glance. "Well, then, let's go into the women's sitting-room, Freddie--this time." Beatty knew when to yield a point--so he flattered himself. "All right, Sweetest," he said, "you're the doctor--always."