"Why," cried Jack, aghast, "he'd get on his horse and scoot." "Not far," Ginger opined, entirely unmoved. "He'd ride back. He's not pluck enough to be such a coward as to scoot for good. Just you try." The two women drove the battered old fellow off, Ginger laughed and said: "Aren't men helpless?" Sarella was full of admiration of her prowess. "Well, _you're_ not," she said. "Not me. But, Dad won't find Larry as much surprised as he thinks. It's been in the silly chap's head (or where folks keep their ideas that have no head) this three weeks. _I_ saw, though he never said a lot--" Overpowered by curiosity, Sarella asked boldly what he did say. "Oh, just rubbish," Ginger answered laughing; "you're as clean as a tablet of scented soap, anyway," says he, first. Then he said, "Ginger, I've known pretty girls with hair not near so nice as yours--not a quarter so much of it." Another time he asked if I kept a tooth-brush. "I thought so," says he, quite loving; "your teeth's as white as nuts with the brown skin off, and as regular as a row of tombstones in an undertaker's window. I never _did_ mind freckles as true as I stand here ..." and stuff like that. But the strongest ever he said was, "Pastry! What's pastry when a woman don't know how to make it. I'd as soon eat second-hand toast. Yours, Ginger, is like what the angels make, _I_ should say, at Thanksgiving for the little angels.'" "Did he, really!" said Sarella, feeling quite sure that Larry would not "scoot." "I told him," Ginger explained calmly, that if he didn't quit such senseless talk _he'd_ never get any more of my pastry. He looked so down that I gave him a slice of pumpkin pie when he was leaving. "The pastry," says I, "will mind you of me, and the pumpkin of yourself." But he got his own back, for he just grinned and said, "Yes, I'll think o' them together, Ginger, for the pie and the pumpkin belongs together, don't they?" Sarella laughed and expressed her belief that after all Jack's embassy was rather superfluous. "Maybe so. But I knew he'd hate it, and he deserved it for seeming so unbelieving. If my mother had been _lovely_ I'd have been born plain; it's not _him_ as should think me too ugly for any young fellow to fancy. I daresay I shouldn't have decided to take Larry if Miss Mariquita hadn't sent that message. I was afraid she'd think me a fool. Here's Larry coming round the corner, looking as if he'd been stealing his mother's sugar." "He's only thinking of your pastry," said Sarella. "I'll slip off. May I be told when it's all settled?" "Yes, certainly, Miss Sarella, and I'm sure I wish all that's best to the Boss and yourself. It's not everyone could manage him, but _you_ will. Poor Miss Mariquita never could. She was too good." With these mixed compliments Sarella had to content herself. CHAPTER XXXIV.