Lorraine did not press the matter of taking Cora on the vacation, although Cora had managed to invite herself! “There is melancholia in our family,” she told Lorraine. “Oh, yes, several suicides—terrible, isn’t it? I try not to brood but I am a daughter of the sun, I crave love and life. How could I be content in this pokey place? Oh, Lorraine, I look upon you as a sister—do be good to me,” at which Lorraine’s gullible little self would be utterly won over and she would bake Cora’s favorite cake and make her a crêpe de chine waist and ask over, braving Dan’s wrath, some drummer who might be in search of a wife as well as a buyer for his dustless mops! But there was another person who had come into The Corners since Thurley had left it and whom Dan regarded as every one’s enemy. He had said publicly that it was a patriotic duty to have this person, Owen Pringle, although he spelled it Oweyne and had a book plate, shot at sunrise, velvet smoking-jacket, hair parted in the middle and all! As the record ended, Dan flung himself on the sofa, remarking, “I wish Cora and Owen would get married—ye gods, do you get it?” He chuckled. “I’d hand them a chest of small silver if they did. How about it—can’t you get Owen interested?” “Oh, Cora wouldn’t consider him,” Lorraine said seriously. Dan chuckled more than ever. “If you had a sense of humor, you’d have a lot of fun, but you take these people at face value. Now Owen clerked for me a month and disorganized the whole shop. I’ll tell you right now that unless he cuts out his nonsense and goes back to the livery stable from which he sprang, I’m going to get him away from here.” “But his shop is artistic,” Lorraine murmured.