t his arms about her head and patted her cheek and said, "Poor
sister! Poor Daisy!" until, frightened by her emotion, he too began to
cry. The necessity of soothing and comforting him gave her that
distraction which has been woman's chief comfort since woman first had
trouble. But her face was still sad and anxious when Wellesly appeared
on the veranda in the late afternoon.

Albert Wellesly, who lived in Denver, disliked very much the
occasional visits to Las Plumas which his financial interests made
necessary. He was still on the under side of thirty, but his business
associates declared that he possessed a shrewdness and a capacity that
would have done credit to a man of twice his years. Possibly people
not infatuated with commercial success might have said that his
ability was nothing more than an unscrupulous determination to grab
everything in sight. Whatever it was, it had made him remarkably
successful. The saying was common among those who knew him that
everything he touched turned to gold. They also prophesied that in
twenty years he would be one of the financial giants of the country.
Las Plumas bored him to desperation, but on this occasion he thought
it would be the part of wisdom to stay longer than had been his first
intention. As long as the town was feverish with excitement he found
it endurable. But when the dullness of peace settled over the streets
again he walked about listlessly, wondering how he could manage to get
through the day. At last he thought of Miss Delarue.

"That's so!" he inwardly exclaimed. "I can go and find out if the
English girl is in love with this handsome big fellow who has been
stealing my cattle. I suppose it will be necessary for me to drink a
cup of tea, but she will amuse me for an hour."

Marguerite Delarue's friends always thought of her and spoke of her as
English, notwithstanding her French paternity. For her appearance and
her temperament she had inherited from her English mother, who had
given her also English training. Miss Delarue laughed at the forlorn
dejection of Wellesly's face and figure.

"My face is a jovial mask," he gravely told her. "You should see the
melancholy gloom that shrouds my mind."

"I hope nothing has happened," she exclaimed, with sudden alarm.

"That's just the trouble, Miss Delarue. It's because nothing does
happen here, and I have to endure the aching void, that I am filled
with such melancholy."

"Surely there was enough excitement