Mickey saw plainly what must be done. He gazed at her and suddenly, for the first time, a wave of something new and undefined rushed through him. This exquisitely delicate and beautiful little Highness, sitting so proudly straight, and so uncompromisingly demanding that he redeem his promises, made a double appeal to Mickey. Her Highness scared him until he was cold inside. He was afraid, and he knew it. He wanted to run, and he knew it; yet no band of steel could have held him as this bit of white femininity, beginning to glow a soft pink from slowly enriching blood, now held and forever would hold him, and best of all he knew that. It was in his heart to be a gentleman; there was nothing left save to be one now. He took both Peaches' hands, and began preparing her gently as was in his power for what had to come. "Yes, Flowersy-girl," he said, "I'll read it to you, but you won't understand 'til I tell you----" "I always understand," she said sweepingly. "You know how wild like I came home last night," explained Mickey. "Well, I had reason. Some folks who have been good to us, and that I love like we love Peter and Ma, had been in awful danger of something that would make them sore all their lives, and maybe I had some little part in putting it over, so it never touched them; anyway, they thought so, and I was tickled past all sense and reason about it. It was up to the editor of the _Herald_ to decide; and what he did, was what I begged him to. Course left to himself, he would a-done it anyway, _after he had time to think_----" "Mickey, read my po'try piece about me, an' then talk," urged Peaches. "Honey, you make me so sick I can't tell you." "Mickey, what's the matter?" Peaches' penetrating eyes were slowly changing to accusing. She drew a deep breath, giving him his first cold, unrelenting look. "Mister Michael O'Halloran," she said in incisive tones, "did you write a po'try piece for the first page of the _Herald, not_ about me?" "Well Miss Chicken," he cried, "I wish you wouldn't talk so much! I wish you'd let me _tell_ you." "I guess you ain't got anything to tell," said Peaches, folding her arms and tilting her chin so high Mickey feared she might topple backward. "I guess I have!" shouted Mickey. "_I_ didn't put that there! I didn't _mean_ it to _be_ there! If I'd a-put it there, and _meant_ it there, and knowed it would _be_ there, it would a-been about you, of course! Answer me this, Miss. Any single time did I ever _not_ do anything that I said I would?" "Nothing but this," admitted Peaches. "There you go again!" said Mickey. "I tell you I _didn't_ do _this_, and when I tell you, I tell true, Miss, get that in your system. If you'd let me explain how it was, you'd see that I didn't have a single thing to do with it."