“Oh, I don’t know’s she’s so satisfied with herself. She wants you to think she is, an’ that’s why she tries to show off so.” “Well, all the same she does stifle me,” Julie repeated. “I reckon she does,” Aunt Sadie conceded, surveying Julie’s shrinking make-up with her shrewd and kindly eyes. “She stifles you, honey, an’ I b’lieve she’s just about choked that poor little husband of hers to death.” “I don’t see why in the world he ever married her,” Julie said. “Who? That little Bixby? I’ll bet he never married _her_--she married _him_.” “I b’lieve that’s true!” Julie cried with conviction. “Yes, I just b’lieve that’s so.” Aunt Sadie’s statement seemed to her an illuminating discovery. Of course that was it. None of his real self had gone into the union; that accounted for his detached air, which had made her suppose at first that they were brother and sister. “Of course it’s so,” Mrs. Johnson reaffirmed. “You’re so innocent, Julie, you still think the man does all the courtin’; but I’ll bet poor Bixby did mighty little. I wouldn’t wonder if she married him out of spite. I’ll bet there was another she wanted an’ couldn’t get, so she turned ’round an’ snapped up that little feller, just to show people she could get a man if she wanted one.” “Well, anyway he isn’t all there,” Julie said absently, still pursuing her own line of thought. Aunt Sadie was startled. “Why, what on earth do you mean? Why, Julie, you don’t think he’s wanting, do you? He’s right nervous an’ scary lookin’, I know, but I wouldn’t for a minute say he was feeble-minded.” “No, no, of course I don’t mean that!” Julie protested. “Well, I shouldn’t think you would. Why, he’s real smart in his trade. I heard Mr. McLane bragging about him in the post office this morning. He said they never did have such a good printer on the _News_ before. Said he seemed to understand high-class printing better’n anybody he’d ever known. No, whatever he is, he certainly ain’t feeble-minded.” “Oh, no, of course not,” Julie reiterated. “Of course I didn’t mean that. I just meant she didn’t get the whole of him. She doesn’t own all of him.” “Well, maybe so. I’m sure I hope so--the poor little feller,” Aunt Sadie returned. IX The Bixbys settled themselves down in Mrs. Johnson’s rooms over Julie Rose’s little shop, and thereafter the lives of these two new people were constantly crossing the thread of Julie’s life, all of them together weaving that unseen pattern in the garment of existence.