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Rh shrugged and shamelessly began to wipe her eyes. "Oh, it makes me so mad!"

Ed Munn leaned over and patted her on the arm, big-brother fashion.

"That's all right. That's all right."

Stella blew her nose. "I'm terribly sorry."

"You needn't be. I'm satisfied. I'm not asking you to get excited over me. I like a woman all the better for being fond of her own kid."

"Oh, Ed, you are nice!" She warmed towards him.

"In fact," he went on (he knew now what tack to pursue), "the few times I've seen the offspring I've thought to myself, what a peach of a kid she was."

"Oh, she's wonderful, Ed. I'd die without her!" And again the tears welled up in her eyes.

"Sure you would! Well, I've no intention of kidnaping her."

You see, as Stella told Effie McDavitt afterwards, she and Ed had a perfect understanding.

Stella paid her bill of indebtedness to the proprietor of the boarding-house at Belcher's Beach, for allowing her to economize for a month on his property, it was with a feeling of triumph and with the comforting sense of a disagreeable job well done. There were those, however, who regarded Stella's sojourn in a different light. Stella was blissfully unaware that any one except Effie and Ed even knew of the sojourn, any one who had any connection with Milhampton.

As the train sped along towards that city, at the