us of the picture
they were forming. The tall ranchman, clad in full cowboy
paraphernalia, his extended legs encased in leathern "shaps" decorated
with long fringes, his belt of rattlesnake-skin, his loose shirt showing
a triangle of bronzed throat, in his hand the broad sombrero clasped
about with a silver band.

Little Mrs. Nancy sitting upright in her chair, in her neat old black
gown, holding the forgotten bonnet in her lap, watched her picturesque
visitor with the greatest interest. And looking up into the delicate
little old face, he noted all the sweetness and brightness which had so
long been lost upon the world. To make a clean breast of it, the two
fell frankly in love with each other upon the spot, and before the
stranger had departed, he had persuaded her to visit his ranch with him
the very next Sunday.

"But I don't know what to call you," she said, after having agreed upon
this wild escapade.

"That's so," said he. "I go by the name of Wat Warren out here, but they
used to call me Walter at home. I wish you would call me Walter."

"It's a pretty name," she said. "I thought some of calling my boy Walter
at first."

Warren was on the point of departure, and a sudden embarrassment seemed
to seize him. He had his hand in his trousers' pocket. "I 'most forgot
the money for the license," he stammered, as he pulled out a couple of
silver dollars.

Nobody knows what came over Mrs. Nancy, but she suddenly found she could
not take the money.

"Oh, that's of no consequence," she said, quite as though she had had at
her command the whole treasury surplus of a few years ago. "I should
like to make David a present of the license;" and as her two visitors
departed at full gallop, she sat down in a flutter of pleasurable
excitement.

How surprising it all was! She looked back upon the last hour quite
incredulous. She felt as though she had known this strange young man all
her life. Not that he had told her much about his own concerns. On the
contrary, after complimenting her on the subject of David's collar and
David's bath, he had got her talking about herself; and she had told him
about Willie, and about Atchison, and about her desire to go home to New
England.

"My sakes!" said she to herself; "what a chatterbox I'm getting to be in
my old age! What must he have thought of me?" But in her heart she knew
he had not thought any harm of her confidence. There had been no
mistaking the sympathy in that sunburn