"WHY—why—why, what does this mean!" exclaimed "Little Mother Mary" coming upon them at this minute. Notwithstanding the fact that she was surprised, it was obviously a glad surprise. She admired Jean Baptiste, and had been much upset over their little controversy. She understood the root of the trouble, and knew that it had been on account of what Baptiste had written and intimated in the letter regarding the Elder. Her husband did not admire real men, although of course, he was not aware of it. In truth, he admired no man, other than himself. And when others did not do likewise, he usually found excuses to disagree with them in some manner.

Jean Baptiste was not the type of man to make friends with her husband. He was too frank, too forward, too progressive in every way ever to become very intimate with N. Justine McCarthy. To begin with, Jean had never flattered his vanity as it was not his wont to give undue praise. And as yet he had no reason especially to admire the Reverend. That it had not been Orlean who had objected to coming West to marry him he was aware. Nor had it been her mother. It had been N. Justine who had a way of making his faults and shortcomings appear to be those of others—especially within his family, and in this instance his elder daughter bore the blame.

"What would you expect us to do, Little Mother," he said, turning a beaming face upon her.

"But—Orlean, I thought—I thought—"

"Oh, Mother," cried Jean Baptiste, "don't think. It will hurt you. Besides, it will not be necessary for you to think any more with regards to us now. We are as we were, and that is all. There is nothing wrong between us—never has been, nor between you and I now either, is there?" Whereupon he drew her down and upon the davenport and placed himself between her and her daughter.

"Now let's reason this thing out together," he began. "There is no need for quarreling. We'll leave that to idle, disagreeable people. The first thing in life is to know what you want—and then go get it. That's the way I do. When I proposed to Orlean I did so after due consideration. There has been some little disagreement with regards to my coming to get her, which was due to the fact that I have been so overrun with work until I really felt I had not the time to spare. However, here I am and ready to marry her. So let's get those who are concerned together and have it over with. What do you say to it?" he said, looking from one to the other. In the meantime, Ethel had crept down from upstairs to see what was going on, and saw the three on the davenport together, with Jean Baptiste in the middle. Whereupon, she turned and hurried back upstairs to where her husband was, with these words: "Glavis, Glav—is," she cried all out of breath with exasperation. "I just wish you'd look! Just step down there and look!"