"As easy with her as you are, I.W., just as unreasonable you can get." "On the stairs-landing for an hour a child should giggle into the telephone! I'm ashamed for the operators. You take sides with her yet." "I don't, I.W.; only--" "You do!" A patch of light from an upper window sprang then across their path. "She's in her room now, I.W.!" cried Mrs. Goldstone. "She hasn't been telephoning all this time at all. Now, crosspatch!" "You know much! Can't you see she just lit up? Effie!" A voice came down to them, clear and with a quality to it like the ring of thin glass. "Coming, pop!" The light flashed out again, and in a length of time that could only have meant three steps at a bound she was around the elbow of the asphalt walk, a coat dangling off one arm, her summery skirts flying backward and her head ardently forward. "You'll never guess!" She flung herself between the two of them, linking into each of their elbows. "By my watch, Effie, fifty minutes! If it happens again that you get rung up supper-time, I--" "It was Leon Kessler, pop; he didn't leave on the six-two. Can you beat it? Down at the station he got to thinking of me and turned back. Oh, my golly! how the boys love me!" She was jumping now on the tips of her toes, her black curls bouncing. "You don't tell me!" said Mr. Goldstone. "To-day in the store he says he must be back in New York by Monday morning." She thrust her face outward, its pink-and-white vividness very close to his. "Is my daddy's daughter going out in a seventy horse-power to Delmar Garden? She is!" "Them New York boys spend too much money on the girls when they come. They spoil them for the home young men." "Can I help it if he couldn't tear himself away?" "S-ay, don't fool yourself! I said to him to-day he should stay over Sunday. After the bill of goods I bought from him this morning, and the way he only comes out to see his trade once in five or six years, he should stay and mix with them a little longer. That fellow knows good business." She turned her face with a fling of curls to the right of her, linking closer into the soft arm there. "Listen to him, Mamma Hat! Let's shove a brick house over on him." When Mrs. Goldstone finally spoke there was a depth to her voice that seemed to create sudden quiet. "Effie, Effie, why didn't you let him go?" "Let him? Did I tie any strings to him? I said good-by to him in the store this afternoon. Can I help it that the boys love me? Why didn't I let him go, she says!" Her father pinched her slyly at that. "_Echta_ fresh kid," he said. To her right, the hand at her arm clung closer. "Effie, you--you're so young, honey. Leon Kessler's an old-timer--" "I hate kids. Give me a _man_ every time. I like them when they've got enough sense to--" "Why didn't you let him go, Effie? Ain't I right, I.W.? Ain't I right?" "S-ay, what's the difference if he likes to show her a good time? If I was a young man, I wouldn't pass her up myself."