"You'd better go along and find mother so as to get it over," warned Jean.
"I fool so feelish," returned Jack using an expression of which they all were fond. "I am just making conversation so as to put off the evil hour. Well, I suppose I might as well go. Remember me in your prayers, girls," and this time she was really gone.
She hesitated before she tapped at her mother's door. To the invitation to enter she poked her head in the door and said, "I just thought I might as well tell you, mother, that I am going to marry Carter."
Her mother smiled. "I have been hearing that for the past six years, Jack. It isn't really a very great surprise to hear you say so."
"But I really mean it this time," declared Jack, coming a little further into the room. "I have been treating him like a dog and I feel like a crawly worm about it, so I thought if I told the family I might not be tempted to flaunt myself so outrageously hereafter."
"Don't you think it is rather hard upon a mother to have two such announcements thrust upon her in one day?" inquired Mrs. Corner gravely.
"Oh, but just think what darling men we have chosen," replied Jack encouragingly. "Suppose I had fallen in love with Mr. Tamura, and Nan had picked up some crooked stick of an oily-haired musician who hadn't two cents to rub together and would waste the one cent he might have. Just think of that, and then look at dear old Carter and Neal Harding. Why, if you hunted the world over, you couldn't find two nicer men."
Mrs. Corner had to laugh. Jack's arguments were always of such a nature. "Well, dear, I quite agree with you," she said. "If I have to lose my girls, I certainly must commend them for having chosen wisely."
"Oh, but you won't lose us," rejoined Jack. "I don't intend to marry for years and years, and besides, you know they always say that when a daughter marries, a mother gains a son, but when a son marries, a mother loses him entirely. Aren't you glad we are all girls, mother? You may have three or four sons yet."