"Old!" repeated Gabe, reproachfully. "Old! Lettin' on a little wear and tear, they're as good as they ever were. That petticoat is stronger," said Gabriel, holding up the garment and eyeing the patches with a slight glow of artistic pride--"stronger, Olly, than the first day you put it on." "But that's five years ago, Gabe." "Well," said Gabriel, turning round and addressing himself impatiently to the screen, "wot if it is?" "And I've growed." "Growed!" said Gabriel, scornfully. "And haven't I let out the tucks, and didn't I put three fingers of the best sacking around the waist? You'll just ruin me in clothes." Olly laughed from behind the screen. Finding, however, no response from the grim worker, presently there appeared a curly head at the flap, and then a slim little girl, in the scantiest of nightgowns, ran, and began to nestle at his side, and to endeavour to enwrap herself in his waistcoat. "Oh, go 'way!" said Gabriel, with a severe voice and the most shameless signs of relenting in his face. "Go away! What do you care? Here I might slave myself to death to dress you in silks and satins, and you'd dip into the first ditch or waltz through the first underbrush that you kem across. You haven't got no _sabe_ in dress, Olly. It ain't ten days ago as I iron-bound and copper-fastened that dress, so to speak, and look at it now! Olly, look at it now!" And he held it up indignantly before the maiden. Olly placed the top of her head against the breast of her brother as a _point d'appui_, and began to revolve around him as if she wished to bore a way into his inmost feelings. "Oh, you ain't mad, Gabe!" she said, leaping first over one knee and then over the other without lifting her head. "You ain't mad!" Gabriel did not deign to reply, but continued mending the frayed petticoat in dignified silence. "Who did you see down town?" said Olly, not at all rebuffed. "No one," said Gabriel, shortly. "You did! You smell of linnyments and peppermint," said Olly, with a positive shake of the head. "You've been to Briggs's and the new family up the gulch." "Yes," said Gabriel, "that Mexican's legs is better, but the baby's dead. Jest remind me, to-morrow, to look through mother's things for suthin' for that poor woman." "Gabe, do you know what Mrs. Markle says of you?" said Olly, suddenly raising her head. "No," replied Gabriel, with an affectation of indifference that, like all his affectations, was a perfect failure. "She says," said Olly, "that you want to be looked after yourself more'n all these people. She says you're just throwing yourself away on other folks. She says I ought to have a woman to look after me."