she parted from him with reluctance at half-past ten and scolded the girl to bed.
"There 's not many boys in Noo York like him," she said; "more 's the pity. He 's—"
"He 's as slow as mud."
"What of it?" she cried. "It 's the mud that sticks to yeh. He 's no fly-away, anyways. He 's a good boy. He is now. Y' ought to take shame to yerself to be baitin' him so. Yer own father was as like him as ever was, an' he made as steady a man as any girl 'd want. Mind yeh that."
"All right, 'mither,'" she laughed. "Let me go to sleep. I 'll marry him in the mornin'."
"You might do worse."
"I might do better."
III
Thereafter, if Larkin made no great progress with Miss Connors, he received every encouragement from her mother. She sent him one night to get a prescription filled at the drug store, and even allowed him to pay for the medicine when he insisted that he should—without letting "Maggie" know. Once having obtained that privilege, he made it a permanent one; and from this beginning he insinuated his aid into the payment of some of the other household expenses, brought Mrs. Connors presents of tea and sugar, and finally slipped a part of his pay-day riches into her hand—when she was bidding him good night in the hall—"fer the doctor's bill."
