"You--whoever you are--needn't bother to answer this. None of us Madigans wants your help or annybody else's. It's only that Aunt Anne's got the scribbles, and we'll thank you to mind your own business. _"Sissy Madigan."_ The savior threw back his head in a quite boyish way and laughed aloud as he watched her face. A cold rage seized Sissy. To be laughed at before the whole table! She hated him; she knew she hated him! "I don't understand," said Madigan, feeling called upon to say something that was not vituperative at his own dinner-table. "You could never have seen a note of Sissy's, Mr. Morgan?" "Never." The savior lied like a gentleman. But he was mistaken if he supposed that he had placated Cecilia. She would not even meet his eyes, those eyes that twinkled so enjoyingly. The savior tried Irene. "You and I have hair the same color," he said genially. "I hope your temper isn't like mine, too." "I hope not," she answered stiffly. He laughed again, that big, amused laugh. Split's eyes shot fire. Evidently the Madigans were funnier than they knew. "Now, I wonder," he said, "would that be a compliment or a confession?" "Irene is trying and succeeding better every day in gaining self-control," interposed Aunt Anne, with hasty amiability. To discuss Irene's temper in committee of the whole, like that--the temerity of the man! "Won't you have some more mutton?" she pressed. "It's wash-day, you know, and it's just a pick-up dinner; but we're so glad to have you, if you'll excuse--" "The apology's due from me, you know," he interrupted. "And the good fortune's mine, too. Fancy me dining the evening of my arrival at that brick barn they call the hotel down yonder! It will be hard enough when I really have to live there." "You do not surely expect--" began Madigan, pausing over his strawberries. "To live 'out West'? Will you let me tell you how it happened, Mr. Madigan? There isn't much to it--just this: Miles Madigan, as you know--do you know?--was not the man to leave much behind him. Not that he'd deliberately wrong a fellow, poor old chap, but--well--oh, you understand! Well, when his solicitors got through subtracting and dividing and subdividing, the heir--one Miles Morgan, bred to do nothing, and with a talent for that profession, I must admit--found himself poor, with just enough to live on. The ten thousand a year had--just slipped through Miles Madigan's fingers." "Oh!" Miss Madigan's voice was sympathizing, disappointed. "Then"--it was Frank's clear treble; she hadn't understood much, but she knew what "poor" meant: a Madigan learned that early--"then you're not going to mawwy Kate?" Kate went white, while Miss Madigan's delicate face flushed purple, and Split pinched Sissy's arm, in her excitement, till that young woman cried aloud. "Frances--outside!" stormed Madigan.