nd Ruth ride up to the
door. They carried a basket. Evidently they had heard of Mrs. Laramie's
trouble. Duane felt strangely glad, but he went into an adjoining room
rather than meet them.

"Mrs. Laramie, I've come to see you," said Miss Longstreth, cheerfully.

The little room was not very light, there being only one window and
the doors, but Duane could see plainly enough. Mrs. Laramie lay,
hollow-checked and haggard, on a bed. Once she had evidently been a
woman of some comeliness. The ravages of trouble and grief were there to
read in her worn face; it had not, however, any of the hard and bitter
lines that had characterized her husband's.

Duane wondered, considering that Longstreth had ruined Laramie, how Mrs.
Laramie was going to regard the daughter of an enemy.

"So you're Granger Longstreth's girl?" queried the woman, with her
bright, black eyes fixed on her visitor.

"Yes," replied Miss Longstreth, simply. "This is my cousin, Ruth
Herbert. We've come to nurse you, take care of the children, help you in
any way you'll let us."

There was a long silence.

"Well, you look a little like Longstreth," finally said Mrs. Laramie,
"but you're not at ALL like him. You must take after your mother. Miss
Longstreth, I don't know if I can--if I ought accept anything from you.
Your father ruined my husband."

"Yes, I know," replied the girl, sadly. "That's all the more reason you
should let me help you. Pray don't refuse. It will--mean so much to me."

If this poor, stricken woman had any resentment it speedily melted in
the warmth and sweetness of Miss Longstreth's manner. Duane's idea
was that the impression of Ray Longstreth's beauty was always swiftly
succeeded by that of her generosity and nobility. At any rate, she had
started well with Mrs. Laramie, and no sooner had she begun to talk to
the children than both they and the mother were won. The opening of that
big basket was an event. Poor, starved little beggars! Duane's feelings
seemed too easily roused. Hard indeed would it have gone with Jim
Laramie's slayer if he could have laid eyes on him then. However, Miss
Longstreth and Ruth, after the nature of tender and practical girls, did
not appear to take the sad situation to heart. The havoc was wrought in
that household.

The needs now were cheerfulness, kindness, help, action--and these the
girls furnished with a spirit that did Duane good.

"Mrs. Laramie, who dressed this baby?" presently asked Miss Lo