lack, changeful eyes. He made careful
attempt to conceal his growing unrest from Jennie, but her sharp eyes,
accustomed to every change in his face, detected a tremor when Elsie's
name was mentioned, and her ears discovered a subtle vibration in his
voice which instructed her, though she did not attain complete
realization of his absorbing interest. She was sympathetic enough to
search out Elsie's name in the social columns of the Washington papers,
and it was pitiful to see with what joy the busy Indian agent listened
to the brief item concerning "Miss Brisbane's reception on Monday," or
the description of her dress at the McCartney ball.

Jennie sighed as she read of these brilliant assemblages. "George, I
wonder if we will ever spend another winter in Washington?"

"Oh, I think so, sis--some time."

"Some time! But we'll both be so old we won't enjoy it. Sometimes I feel
that we are missing everything that's worth while."

He did not mention Elsie's letter, and as the weeks passed without any
reply he was very glad he had kept silence. Jennie had her secret, also,
which was that Elsie was as good as engaged to Lawson. No one knew this
for a certainty, but Mrs. Wilcox was quite free to say she considered it
a settled thing.

Jennie was relieved to know how indifferent her brother was to Miss
Colson, the missionary, who seemed to be undergoing a subtle
transformation. With Jennie she was always moaning and sighing, but in
the presence of her lord, the agent, she relaxed and became quite
cheerful and dangerously pretty. The other teachers--good, commonplace
souls!--went their mechanical way, with very little communication with
the agent's household, but Miss Colson seized every opportunity to
escape her messmates. "They are so material," she said, sighfully; "they
make spiritual growth impossible to me."

Jennie was not deceived. "You're a cat, that's what you are--a nice,
little, scared cat; but you're getting over your scare," she added, as
she watched the devotee in spirited conversation with her brother.

Elsie's reply to Curtis's long letter was studiedly cool but polite. "I
feel the force of what you say, but the course of civilization lies
across the lands of the 'small peoples.' It is sorrowful, of course, but
they must go, like the wolves and the rattlesnakes." In this phrase he
recognized the voice of Andrew J. Brisbane, and it gave him a twinge to
see it written by Elsie's small hand. The letter ended