t restrain a feeling of
contempt as she looked upon their white faces, soft hands, and
immaculate clothes. Why should men, she asked herself, be so ready and
willing to give themselves completely up to effeminate habits when
their blood was hot within them, and the great Open was calling them
with such a strong insistent voice?

The young woman's arrival brought one of the young men to his feet,
with the offer of a hammock.

"Please do not trouble yourself," she told him. "I must hurry and get
ready for dinner. I know that father is very angry with me."

"He is not the only one who is angry, I can assure you," Sammie Dingle
remarked. "We have been furious with you for leaving us this afternoon
when we needed your company so much in the car. I cannot understand
how you can enjoy yourself alone out on the river in that nasty boat."

"No, I suppose you cannot," Lois replied, and so infatuated was Sammie
with the young woman that he did not notice the slightest sarcasm in
her words.

"Hurry up, Lois," her brother ordered, "I'm almost starved. Dad's got
it in for you."

"All right, Dick," was her reply. "I shall be down in a few minutes.
Why did you wait for me? You had better go to dinner at once, if you
are so hungry."

It took Lois but a short time upstairs, and when she came down she
found the three men in the dining-room. Her father was in one of his
surly moods, and this she could tell at the first glance. He was a
short man, somewhat stout, and pompous both in appearance and manner.
Fortunate it was that his only daughter had inherited none of his
qualities, but was more like her mother, whose memory she cherished
with undying affection. Since her death home had been more of a prison
to her than anything else. Neither her father nor her only brother had
understood her, and she was forced to depend more and more upon her own
reliant self.

"What kept you so late, Lois?" her father asked as soon as she had
taken her place at the table. "You know very well that I do not like
to wait for dinner."

"I am very sorry, father," was the reply, "but I became so greatly
interested in an old man and a girl out on the river that I had no idea
how time was passing."

"Who were they, Lois?" her brother enquired.

"What new creatures have you picked up now? You haven't run out of
homeless cats and dogs, have you?"

The colour mounted to Lois' temples at these words, for it was not the
first time she had