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"Oh, am I, Mister Herbert Atwater?" Florence responded "I'lad you think so!"

"I mean about what Henry Rooter said," her cousin explained "Henry Rooter told rapevine clirapes with the seeds in 'eet a carpenter to build a little arbour so you could s it for the grapevine to grow on He says----"

Florence had becory pink "That little Henry Rooter is the worst falsehooder in this town; and I never believed a word he said in his life! Anyhat affairs is it of yours, I'd like you to please be so kind and obliging for to tell sworth Atwater, Exquire!"

"What affairs?" Herbert echoed in plaintive satire "What affairs is it of ot to be oodness I didn't have anything to do with you being my cousin, did I?"

"Well, I didn't!"

"That's neither here nor there," said Herbert "What I want to know is, how long you goin' to keep this up?"

"Keep what up?"

"I mean, how do you think I like havin' somebody like Henry Rooter comin' round me tellin' what they made a cousin of oin' on fourteen ever since about a o!"

Florence shouted: "Oh, for goodness' sakes!" then moderated the volume but not the intensity of her tone "Kindly reply to this Whoever asked you to come and take a ith me to-day?"

Herbert protested to heaven "Why, I wouldn't take a ith you if every policeman in this town tried to ht a million horses and--"

"I wouldn't take a ith you," Florence interrupted, "if they brought a million million horses and cows and camels and--"

"No, you wouldn't," Herbert said "Not if I could help it!"

But by this tiained her derisive superciliousness "There's a few things you could help," she said; and the incautious Herbert challenged her with the inquiry she desired

"What could I help?"

"I should think you could help bumpin' into me every second when I' on your own side of the sidewalk, anyway, and not be so aard a person has to keep trippin' over you about every time I try to take a step!"