"Oh, papa!" she cried, "how beautiful it is!"

"And I'll be durned if 't wa' n't the mountings the gal was looking at
all the time!" Cy Willows declared, when reporting upon the astonishing
situation at the ranch.

Stanwood himself was somewhat impressed by the girl's attitude. The
museum had come to seem to his long unaccustomed mind a very splendid
apartment indeed. When, a few minutes later, Elizabeth joined him in the
rudely furnished living-room of the cabin, he felt something very like
chagrin at her first observation.

"Oh, papa!" she cried. "I'm so glad the rest of it is a real ranch
house! I've always wanted to see just how a real ranchman lives!"

He thought ruefully that she would soon learn, to her cost, how a very
poverty-stricken ranchman lived. His examination of the larder had not
been encouraging.

"I am afraid we shall have rather poor pickings for supper, my dear," he
said apologetically. He called her "my dear" from the first; it seemed
more non-committal and impersonal than the use of her name. He had not
called a young lady by her first name for fifteen years.

"I have my dinner in the middle of the day," he went on, "and I seem to
have run short of provisions this evening."

"I suppose you have a man-cook," she remarked, quite ignoring his
apology.

"Yes," he replied grimly. "I have the honor to fill that office myself."

"Why; isn't there anybody else about the place?"

"No. I'm 'out of help' just now, as old Madam Gallup used to say. I
don't suppose you remember old Madam Gallup."

"Oh, yes, I do! Mama used to have her to dinner every Sunday. She looked
like a duchess, but when she died people said she died of starvation.
That was the year after you went away," she added thoughtfully.

It seemed very odd to hear this tall young woman say "mama," and to
realize that it was that other Elizabeth that she was laying claim to.
Why, the girl seemed almost as much of a woman as her mother. Fifteen
years! A long time to be sure. He ought to have known better than to
have slipped into reminiscences at the very outset. Uncomfortable
things, always--uncomfortable things!

He would not let her help him get the supper, and with a subtle
perception of the irritation which he was at such pains to conceal, she
forbore to press the point, and went, instead, and sat in the doorway,
looking dreamily across the prairie.

Stanwood noted her choice of a seat, with a curious mixture of jealousy
and