“No sir” beamed Ruth. “I think I’m perfectly beautiful.” 

 Bailey grunted. Ruth came to him and gave him a sisterly kiss. She was very fond of Bailey, though she declined to reverence him. 

 “Cheer up, Bailey boy,” she said. “Don’t you worry yourself. There’s a method in my madness. I’ll find him sooner or later, and then you’ll be glad I waited.” 

 “Him? what do you mean?” 

 “Why, him, of course. The ideal young man. That’s who—or is it whom?—I’m waiting for. Bailey, shall I tell you something? You’re so scarlet already—poor boy, you ought not to rush around in this hot weather—that it won’t make you blush. It’s this. I’m ambitious. I mean to marry the finest man in the world and have the greatest little old baby you ever dreamed of. By the way, now I remember, I told Clarence that.” 

 Bailey uttered a strangled exclamation. 

 “It has made you blush! You turned purple. Well, now you know. I mean my baby to be the most splendid baby that was ever born. He’s going to be strong and straight and clever and handsome, and—oh, everything else you can think of. That’s why I’m waiting for the ideal young man. If I don’t find him I shall die an old maid. But I shall find him. We may pass each other on Fifth Avenue. We may sit next each other at a theatre. Wherever it is, I shall just reach right out and grab him and whisk him away. And if he’s married already, he’ll have to get a divorce. And I shan’t care who he is. He may be any one. I don’t mind if he’s a ribbon clerk or a prize-fighter or a policeman or a cab-driver, so long as he’s the right man.” 

 Bailey plied the handkerchief on his streaming forehead. The heat of the day and the horror of this conversation were reducing his weight at the rate of ounces a minute. In his most jaundiced mood he had never imagined these frightful sentiments to be lurking in Ruth’s mind. 

 “You can’t mean that!” he cried. 

 “I mean every word of it,” said Ruth. “I hope, for your sake, he won’t turn out to be a waiter or a prize-fighter, but it won’t make any difference to me.” 

 “You’re crazy!” 

 “Well, just now you said Aunt Lora was. If she is, I am.” 

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