"He started in telling me about his lady friends again, to-day. I didn't want to know about them, so I just told him. I was mad, anyway;--about him and you, I guess. He was mad, too. Said I was fresh. Grand-dad took your part against Joe. Said he liked you anyway. Then he took my part. He knows Joe,--you bet. "He says, 'That'll do, Joe. You leave Rita be. She's a good lass and you ain't playin' the game fair.' "I didn't hear any more, for I ran out. Didn't go back either, till Joe cleared out." "What relation is Joe to the others, Rita?" I asked in puzzlement. "Joe's an orphan, same as me. His dad was grand-dad's only son, who got killed in a blasting accident up the coast. Joe's mother was a Swede. She died two months after Joe was born. Since Joe got moving for himself, he don't stay around home very much. Sleeps mostly at the Camps or on the tugs. Says grandmother and grand-dad make him tired; says they're silly fools,--because,--because,----" Tears gathered in Rita's eyes and she did not finish. I let her pent-up emotion have free run for a while; probably because I was ill at ease and knew I should look an idiot and talk like an imbecile if I tried to console her, although I recalled having heard somewhere that it is generally best to let a woman have her cry out once she gets started. At last Rita wiped her eyes and looked over at me. "Guess you think me a baby,--guess I am, too," she said. "Never cried before that I have mind. Never had anybody to cry to." I smiled. And Rita smiled,--a moist and trembling sort of smile in return. "Joe Clark has been taking me, same as he takes most things, too much for granted. Thinks I don't know nothing, because I'm up here at the Crescent and not been educated any more'n grandmother and grand-dad could teach me. But I've got feelings and I ain't going to have anything more to do with him. Well,--not till he knows how to treat me, same as I should be treated. Guess not then either. I don't care now. I might not want him later,--might hate him. I believe I shall, too." There was nothing of the soft, weepy baby about this young lady, and I could see from the flash in her dark eyes and the set of her mouth that she meant every word of what she said. She was a dainty, pretty, and alluring little piece of femininity; and I could have taken her in my arms and hugged her, only I did not dare, for like as not she would have boxed my ears. All I could say was: "Good for you, little girl. That's the way to talk." She smiled, and in little more than no time at all she was back into her merry mood. We chatted and laughed together at the window until the dusk had crept into darkness and Rita's Isle had become merely a heavy shadow among the mists. "I got to be getting back," she said at last. "Can you fix up my groceries for me, if you please?"