hat with Phil definitely out of her life
the last interest that bound her to the scenes of her girlhood was
broken. Before many weeks the ranch would be sold. A Prescott agent had
opened negotiations for an eastern client who would soon be out to look
over the property; and Mr. Reid felt, from all that the agent had said,
that the sale was assured. In the meantime Kitty would wait as patiently
as she could. To help her, there would be Helen's visit, and there was
her friendship with Professor Parkhill. It was not strange, considering
all the circumstances, that the young woman should give her time more
generously than ever to the only person in the neighborhood, except
Patches, perhaps, who she felt could understand and appreciate her
desires for that higher life of which even her own parents were
ignorant.

And the professor did understand her fully. He told her so many times
each day. Had he not given all the years of his little life to the study
of those refining and spiritualizing truths that are so far above the
comprehension of the base and ignoble common herd? Indeed, he understood
her language; he understood fully, why the sordid, brutal materialism of
her crude and uncultured environment so repulsed and disgusted her. He
understood, more fully than Kitty herself, in fact, and explained to her
clearly, that her desires for the higher intellectual and spiritual life
were born of her own rare gifts, and evidenced beyond all question the
fineness and delicacy of her nature. He rejoiced with her--with a pure
and holy joy--that she was so soon to be set free to live amid the
surroundings that would afford her those opportunities for the higher
development of her intellectual and spiritual powers which her soul
craved. All this he told her from day to day; and then, one afternoon,
he told her more.

It was the same afternoon that Patches had so unexpectedly found Helen
and Stanford in their Granite Basin camp. Kitty and the professor had
driven in the buckboard to Simmons for the mail, and were coming back by
the road to the Cross-Triangle, when the man asked, "Must we return to
the ranch so soon? It is so delightful out here where there is no one to
intrude with vulgar commonplaces, to mar our companionship."

"Why, no," returned Kitty. "There is no need for us to hurry home." She
glanced around. "We might sit over there, under those cedars on the
hill, where you found me with Mr. Patches that day--the day we saw