riendly interest to the new arrangement. She
caught herself resisting a temptation to spy on their conversations;
she watched Kate's face for tell-tale expression whenever Bertram's
name came up in their luncheon-time chats.

Kate usurped all the finer prerogatives of the nurse. Hers it was to
arrange the sick-room, to put finishing touches on bed and table, to
feed him at his meals. Her tawny hair made sunshine in the chamber,
her cool hands, in their ministration, had the caress of breezes. He
was getting to be an impatient invalid; he bore the confinement harder
than he did the ache of knitting bones. Kate's part it was to laugh
away these irritations, so that she always left him smiling.

He went on mending until they could get him out of bed; until, on an
afternoon when the sun was bright and the wind was low, they could
take him into the garden for a breath of air and view. He made the
journey out-of-doors with Kate supporting him unnecessarily by the
armpit. She set out a Morris chair for him by the lattice, so that he
could overlook the Bay, she tucked the robes about him, she parted the
vines that he might have better view.

For a moment he swept the bay with his eyes and opened his lungs to
the out-door room and air. Then his gaze returned to Kate's strong,
vigorous yet feminine back, as she stood, arms outstretched, hooking
vines on the trellis. The misty sunshine was making jewels in her
hair.

"Say!" He spoke so suddenly and with such meaning in the monosyllable
that Kate blushed as she turned. "Say! is that fellow still writing to
you--the one with the Eastern education and the money?"

Kate dropped her eyes.

"No," she said softly. "I told him--I have broken it off--lately."

Bertram laughed--his old, fresh laugh of a boy.

"You saved me trouble then. I was just about to serve notice on him
that henceforth no one but little Bertie was going to be allowed on
this ranch."

Kate did not speak. She continued to look down at the gravel walk.

"Now don't you go pretending you don't know what I mean," Bertram went
on. "Just for that, I won't tell you what I mean. But you know."

"What about Eleanor?" murmured Kate.

"You little devil!" answered Bertram. "Come over here."

Kate sank down on the edge of his chair, and dropped one arm about his
neck.

Mrs. Tiffany, viewing the morning from the window of her room, saw
them so. At first, she smiled; then a heavier expression drew down
all the lines