"'Intrudin'! Would I have invited her if we didn't want her, Arch?" "Naw." "'There's always room for one more,' is my motto. I believe it always comes home to the girl that don't share her good times. If me and Arch couldn't call by for a girl on our way to a party, I'd feel sorry for us. Give her your arm, Arch." "Here! I tried once to, and she wouldn't take it." Miss Schump hooked a highly diffident hand into Mr. Sensenbrenner's sharply jutted elbow. "You two go on and talk together. I've chewed Arch's right ear off already." "It's a grand evenin'--ain't it, Mr. Sensenbrenner?" At that from Miss Schump, Miss Kinealy executed a very soprano squeal that petered out in a titter of remonstrances. "Arch Sensenbrenner, if you don't stop pinching me! Honest, my arm's black and blue! Honest! What'll Stella think we are? Now cut it out!" They walked a block in silence, but, beside her, Miss Schump could feel them shaking to a duet of suppressed laughter, and the red in her face rose higher and a little mustache of the tiniest of perspiration beads came out over her lip. The desire to turn back, the sudden ache for the quietude of the little halo of lamplight and the swollen finger-joints of her mother in and out at work, were almost not to be withstood. "I--You--you and Mr. Sensenbrenner go on, Cora. I--me not knowin' Gertie Cobb and all--I--I--feel I'm intruding. You and him go on. Please!" Miss Kinealy crossed to her, kindly at once and sobered. "Now, Stella Schump, you're coming right to this party with me and Arch. We can't do more than tell her she's welcome, can we, Arch?" "Sure." "I promised your mother I'm going to see to it that you get away from her apron-strings and out among young folks more, and you're coming right to this party with me and Arch. Ain't I right, Arch?" "Sure." "You mustn't feel bad, honey, that Ed couldn't get John Gilly to come around and call after you. Ed says he'd never get him to steam up his nerve enough to call at a girl's house after her; but ain't it enough he's coming to Gert's to-night just to meet you? You ought to heard him when Ed got to telling him what kind of a girl you was. 'Gee!' Ed says he says. 'Big blue eyes like saucers sounds good to me! Well,' he says, Ed says he says, 'if my nerve don't lay down on me, I'll show up there with you.' That's something, ain't it, for a fellow like John Gilly to do just to meet a girl? Ain't it, Arch, for that fine, big fellow, Ed's foreman, you seen up at our house that night? You know the one I mean, the one with his arm scalded up from the explosion." "Sure." "Honest, if I wasn't already tagged and spoken for, I'd set my cap for him myself." "'Mother, mother, mother, pin a rose on me!'" cried Mr. Sensenbrenner, with no great pertinence. Miss Kinealy threw him a northwest glance. "Ain't he the cut-up, Stella?" "He sure is." "Br-a-a-y!" said Mr. Sensenbrenner, again none too relevantly.