d had she not already
been confidentially warned that Jeff was to be the forthcoming year's
president?

It was the crowning event in the long dreamed dreams of the two men
whom she frankly admitted to herself were nearest and dearest to her.
Why should she not admit it? Her father? Ah, yes, her father was the
most perfect, kindly, sympathetic father that ever lived. And Jeff? A
warm thrill swept through her heart and set it beating tumultuously.
Jeff was her whole sum and substance of life itself.

Well enough she knew that no other bond than that of friendship existed
between them; that no word had ever passed between them which might not
have passed in the daily intercourse between brother and sister. But
this did not cause her to shrink from the admission. Jeff was her
whole horizon in life. There was no detail of her focus which was not
occupied by the image of the man whom she regarded as the genius of
their fortunes.

There were moments enough when she realized with something akin to
dismay that Jeff and she _were_ friends. But her gentle humor always
served her at such moments. And there was always the lukewarm
consolation that there was no other woman who had even a similar claim.
Therefore she hugged her secret to herself, and only gazed upon it in
such moments of happy dreaming as the present.

And just now they were happy moments. How could it be otherwise in a
girl so healthy, and with such a depth of human feeling and with such a
capacity for sheer enjoyment of the simple pleasures which came her
way? What an evening yet confronted her in this brief week of holiday
from the claims of the green-brown plains of summer. She must be ready
at seven o'clock for the reception at the City Hall. She had a new
gown for that particular event, which had, amongst others, been bought
in New York. It had cost one hundred and thirty dollars, an
unthinkable price it had seemed, but dismissed as something too paltry
to be considered by the open-handed ranchman whom she claimed as father.

She was to assist Jeff and her father in receiving the guests, who
would represent all the heads of their cattle world, and their friends,
and their wives, and their daughters. And after that the banquet,
which, since the inauguration of the Association, had always taken
place, here at Aston's Hotel.

There would be speeches. Jeff would speak, and her father--no, she
hoped he wouldn't speak. Her smile deepened. He h