"It was that snippy little Marjorie Lowry with the baby face, wasn't it?" says she. "Oh, very well, if you prefer that kind. Just like a man!"
"Do I have to pick either one?" says I. "I hope not; for, between you and me, Sadie, I'm satisfied as it stands."
"Goose!" says she, snugglin' up forgivin'. "And—would you guess it?—they say she's twenty-six! I wonder why she isn't married?"
"There you go!" says I. "I could see it comin'."
"But she is such an attractive girl," goes on Sadie, "so well poised, graceful, dignified, all that! And she has such exquisite coloring, and such charming manners!"
Yep, I guess it was all so. One of these wavin' palm models, Veronica was,—tall and willowy, with all the classy points of a heroine in a thirty-five-cent magazine serial,—dark eyes, dark, wavy hair, good color scheme in her cheeks,—the whole bag of tricks,—and specially long on dignity. Say, she had me muffled from the first tap of the bell, and you know how apt I am to try to break that sort of spell with a few frivolous cracks. Not when Veronica swings on me with that calm gaze of hers, though!
For Sadie don't do a thing but call on the Adamses, give a tea for Veronica, and proceed to round up all the Johnnies in sight to meet her. It's her reg'lar campaign, you know.
"Ah, why not let the poor girl alone?" says I. "Maybe she's got one in trainin' somewhere herself. There's no tellin', too, but what she's stayin' single from choice."
"Humph!" says Sadie. "Only the homely ones are entitled to give that excuse, because they have no other; and only a stupid man would believe it in either case. I suppose Miss Adams hasn't married because the right man hasn't asked her. Sometimes they don't, you know. But it's a perfect shame, and if I can help the right one to find her I'm going to do it."
"Sure you are," says I. "That's the skirt instinct. But, say, while the men still have the vote all to themselves they ought to revise the game laws by declarin' a close season on bachelors, say from the fifteenth of August to the fifteenth of December."