"Oh!" she flashes back.  "Then at last you've missed it, have you?"

"With so much else worth lookin' at," says I, "is it a wonder?"

"Blarney!" says she, stickin' out her tongue.

"Did Aunty capture it?" says I.

Vee shakes her head.

"Maybe you lost it?" I goes on.  "It wa'n't much."

"Then you wouldn't care if I had?" says she.

"I wanted you to keep it," says I; "but of course, after all the row
Aunty raised over it, I knew you couldn't."

"Couldn't I, though?" says she, and with that she fishes up the end of
a little gold neck chain from under some lace--and hanged if there
ain't the ring!

"Vee!" says I, sort of tingly all over as I gazes at her.  "Say, you're
a corker, though!  Why, I thought sure you'd----"

"Silly boy!" says she.  "I'll just have to pay you for that.  You will
think horrid things of me, will you?  There!"

She does things in a flash when she cuts loose too.  Next I knew she
has her fingers in what Eulalia calls my crimson crest and is rumplin'
up all them curls I'd been so careful to slick back.  I grabbed her
wrists, and it was more or less of a rough-house scene we was indulgin'
in, when all of a sudden the draperies are brushed back, and in stalks
Aunty, with Cousin Eulalia trailin' behind.

"Ver-ona!"  Talk about havin' a pitcher of cracked ice slipped down
your back!  Say, there was more chills in that one word than ever blew
down from Medicine Hat.  "What," goes on Aunty, "does this mean?"

"It--it's a new game," says I, grinnin' foolish.

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