It was Margaret McCann, the "Freckles" of orphan asylum days, who spoke. Her utterance was thick, owing to the quantity of pins she was endeavoring to hold between tightly pressed lips. She was standing on a chair putting up muslin curtains in her new home at The Gore, or Quarry End Park, as it was now named, and Aileen had come to help her. "It's like ye're too purticular," she added, her first remark not having met with any response. She turned on the chair and looked down upon her old chum. She was sitting on the floor surrounded by a pile of fresh-cut muslin; the latest McCann baby was tugging with might and main at her apron in vain endeavor to hoist himself upon his pudgy uncertain legs. Aileen was laughing at his efforts. Catching him suddenly in her arms, she covered the little soft head, already sprouting a suspicion of curly red hair, with hearty kisses; and Billy, entering into the fun, crowed and gurgled, clutching wildly at the dark head bent above him and managing now and then, when he did not grasp too wide of the mark, to bury his chubby creased hands deep in its heavy waves. "Oh, Maggie, you're like all the rest! Because you've a good husband of your own, you think every other girl must go and do likewise." "Now ye're foolin', Aileen, like as you used to at the asylum. But I mind the time when Luigi was the wan b'y for you--I wonder, now, you couldn't like him, Aileen? He's so handsome and stiddy-like, an' doin' so well. Jim says he'll be one of the rich men of the town if he kapes on as he's begun. They do say as how Dulcie Caukins'll be cuttin' you out." "I didn't love him, Maggie; that's reason enough." She spoke shortly. Maggie turned again from her work to look down on her in amazement. "You was always that way, Aileen!" she exclaimed impatiently, "thinkin' nobody but a lord was good enough for you, an' droppin' Luigi as soon as ever you got in with the Van Ostend folks; and as for 'love'--let me give you as good a piece of advice as you'll get between the risin' of a May sun and its settin':--if you see a good man as loves you an' is willin' to marry you, take him, an' don't you leave him the chanct to get cool over it. Ye'll love him fast enough if he's good to you--like my Jim," she added proudly. "Oh, your Jim! You're always quoting him; he isn't quite perfection even if he is 'your Jim.'" "An' is it parfection ye're after?" Maggie was apt in any state of excitement to revert in her speech to the vernacular. "'Deed an' ye'll look till the end of yer days an' risk dyin' a downright old maid, if it's parfection ye're after marryin' in a man! An' I don't need a gell as has niver been married to tell me my Jim ain't parfection nayther!" Maggie resumed her work in a huff; Aileen smiled to herself. "I didn't mean to say anything against your husband, Maggie; I was only speaking in a general way."