etter--no common event for her. Therefore, during several
days she had all callers read it just as naturally as she had them all
see the new baby, and baby and letter had both been brought out for me.
The letter was signed,

"Ever your afectionite frend.

"Katie Peck,"

and was not easy to read, here and there. But you could piece out the
drift of it, and there was Mrs. Taylor by your side, eager to help you
when you stumbled. Miss Peck wrote that she was overworked in Sidney,
Nebraska, and needed a holiday. When the weather grew warm she should
like to come to Bear Creek and be like old times. "Like to come and be
like old times" filled Mrs. Taylor with sentiment and the cow-punchers
with expectation. But it is a long way from February to warm weather on
Bear Creek, and even cow-punchers will forget about a new girl if she
does not come. For several weeks I had not heard Miss Peck mentioned,
and old girls had to do. Yesterday, however, when I paid a visit to Miss
Molly Wood (the Bear Creek schoolmistress), I found her keeping in
order the cabin and the children of the Taylors, while they were gone
forty-five miles to the stage station to meet their guest.

"Well," said Lin, judicially, "Miss Wood is a lady."

"Yes," said I, with deep gravity. For I was thinking of an occasion when
Mr. McLean had discovered that truth somewhat abruptly.

Lin thoughtfully continued. "She is--she's--she's--what are you laughin'
at?"

"Oh, nothing. You don't see quite so much of Miss Wood as you used to,
do you?"

"Huh! So that's got around. Well, o' course I'd ought t've knowed
better, I suppose. All the same, there's lots and lots of girls do like
gettin' kissed against their wishes--and you know it."

"But the point would rather seem to be that she--"

"Would rather seem! Don't yu' start that professor style o' yours, or
I'll--I'll talk more wickedness in worse language than ever yu've heard
me do yet."

"Impossible!" I murmured, sweetly, and Master Lin went on.

"As to point--that don't need to be explained to me. She's a lady all
right." He ruminated for a moment. "She has about scared all the boys
off, though," he continued. "And that's what you get by being refined,"
he concluded, as if Providence had at length spoken in this matter.

"She has not scared off a boy from Virginia, I notice," said I. "He
was there yesterday afternoon again. Ridden all the way over from Sunk
Creek. Didn't seem