"Susan Jane Fullalove," she cried shrilly, "how dare you?"
Mrs. Fullalove remained calm.
"It's so, Lily. Yer so thin, I didn't see ye sittin' edgeways, but ye needn't to ramp an' roar. Yer ranch is flyin' to flinders because Mr. Panel's tuk a notion that it's a-floatin' on a lake of ile."
"An' mebbe it is," replied Mrs. Panel, subsiding.
Shortly afterwards we heard that Uncle Jap was frequenting saloons, hanging about the hotels in the county town, hunting, of course, for a capitalist who would bore for oil on shares, seeking the "angel" with the dollars who would transport him and his Lily into the empyrean of millionaires. When he confided as much to us, my brother Ajax remarked--
"Hang it all, Uncle Jap, you've got all you want."
"That's so. I hev. But Lily----Boys, I don't like ter give her away-- this is between me an' you--she's the finest in the land, ain't she? Yas. An' work? Great Minneapolis! Why, work come mighty near robbin' her of her looks. It did, fer a fact. An' now, she'd ought ter take things easy, an' hev a good time."
"She does have a good time."
"Ajax, yer talkin' through yer hat. What do you know of wimmenfolk? Not a derned thing. They're great at pretendin'. I dessay you, bein' a bachelor, think that my Lily kind o' wallers in washin' my ole duds, an' cookin' the beans and bacon when the thermometer's up to a hundred in the shade, and doin' chores around the hog pens an' chicken yards? Wal--she don't. She pretends, fer my sake, but bein' a lady born an' bred, her mind's naterally set on--silks an' satins, gems, a pianner-- an' statooary."
"I can't believe it," said my brother. "Mrs. Panel has always seemed to me the most sensible woman----"