Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/121

 John, and he blushed because of the admiration in her eyes.

"It's a dirty trick of me to take you at your word," said the girl. "But I don't see what else I can do. Honest I don't." John put his arm around her shoulders and patted them in a fatherly way. She had begun to cry. "Do you mean it?" she asked after a while. "Truly?"

"Truly," said John.

"Will you wait here while I tell mother? Mother don't hardly speak to me."

"I want to meet your mother."

The girl seemed a little taken aback. Then she appeared to smile. "Your voice," she said, "is like James's—a little. Mother's blind. Will you let her think you're James? She thinks it's James that's coming to marry me. It would take forever to make her understand what has happened."

"All right," said John. "But before you talk with your mother I want you to know just what I can do and just what I can't. It isn't much . . . I'm a sailor, you know, so I won't be—I won't be home much. I have a hundred and sixty dollars that I can spare and I can send you thirty dollars a month out of my pay. It won't ever be less and when I get to be master it will be more. I'd want you to move away from Westchester. You'll be getting something for the shop, won't you, when