She threw herself on the wide divan, and he fixed pillows under her head.
"You boy! I'm glad it's all over. Let's rest a moment."
He leaned back by her, and drew her head on to his arm.
"I'm glad, too. It's the hardest day's work I ever did. Are you comfortable? Rest."
"It's so good," she murmured, nestling on his shoulder.
"Uncle Peter took his honeymoon in a big wagon drawn by a mule team, two hundred miles over the 'Placerville and Red Dog Trail—over the mountains from California to Nevada. But he says he never had so happy a time."
"He's an old dear! I'll kiss him—how is it you say—'good and plenty.' Did our Uncle Peter elope, too?"
He chuckled.
"Not exactly. It was more like abduction complicated with assault and battery. Uncle Peter is pretty direct in his methods. The young lady's family thought she could do better with a bloated capitalist who owned three-eighths of a saw-mill. But Uncle Peter and she thought she couldn't. So Uncle Peter had to lick her father and two brothers before he could get her away. He would have licked the purse-proud rival, too, but the rival ran into the saw-mill he owned the three-eighths of, and barricaded the whole eight-eighths—the-five-eighths that didn't belong to him at all, you understand—and then he threatened through a chink to shoot somebody if Uncle Peter didn't go off about his business. So Uncle Peter went, not wanting any unnecessary trouble. I've always suspected he was a pretty ready scrapper in those days, but the poor old fellow's getting a bit childish now, with all this trouble about losing the money, and the hard time he had in the snow last winter. By the way, I forgot to ask, and it's almost too late now, but do you like cats?"
"I adore them—aren't kittens the dearest?"