history beyond yesterday was always checked in some way or
other.

CHAPTER IV.

DAN'S WARD.

Mr. Max Lyster was not given to the study of deep problems; his habits of
thought did not run in that groove. But he did watch the young stranger
with unusual interest. Her face puzzled him as much as her presence
there.

"I feel as though I had seen you before," he said at last, and her face
grew a shade paler. She did not look up, and when she spoke, it was very
curtly:

"Where?"

"Oh, I don't know--in fact, I believe it is a resemblance to some one I
know that makes me feel that way."

"I look like some one you know?"

"Well, yes, you do--a little--a lady who is a little older than you--a
little more of a brunette than you; yet there is a likeness."

"Where does she live--and what is her name?" she asked, with scant
ceremony.

"I don't suppose her name would tell you much," he answered. "But it is
Miss Margaret Haydon, of Philadelphia."

"Miss Margaret Haydon," she said slowly, almost contemptuously. "So you
know her?"

"You speak as though you did," he answered; "and as if you did not like
the name, either."

"But you think it's pretty," she said, looking at him sharply. "No, I
don't know such swells--don't want to."

"How do you know she is a swell?"

"Oh, there's a man owns big works across the country, and that's his name.
I suppose they are all of a lot," she said, indifferently. "Say! are there
any girls at Sinna Ferry, any family folks? Dan didn't tell me--only said
there was a white woman there, and I could live with her. He hasn't a
wife, has he?"

"Dan?" and he laughed at the idea, "well, no. He is very kind to women,
but I can't imagine the sort of woman he would marry. He is a queer fish,
you know."

"I guess you'll think we're all that up in this wild country," she
observed. "Does he know much about books and such things?"

"Such things?"

"Oh, you know! things of the life in the cities, where there's music and
theaters. I love the theaters and pictures! and--and--well, everything
like that."

Lyster watched her brightening face, and appreciated all the longing in it
for the things he liked well himself. And she loved the theaters! All his
own boyish enthusiasm of years ago crowded into his memory, as he looked
at her.

"You have seen plays, then?" he asked, and wondered where she had seen
them along that British Columbia line.

"Seen plays! Yes, in 'Frisco, and Portland,