the tip of her finger or all the way down it. But she must
have been here, even if we didn't know it. I'll take it straight to
mother to keep. Then, too, I've idled enough. I promised my dear I'd
write all her Christmas invitations for her, because she says it will
save her the trouble, and be such a help to my education."

"Christmas! Well, well. Does seem as if I couldn't leave before then,
nohow. And hear me, Jessie, darlin', don't you let your poor ma worry
her head over your book learning. Being she was a schoolma'am herself
makes her feel as if she wasn't doing the square thing by you letting
you run wild, so to speak. If the Lord means you to get schoolin'
He'll put you in the right way of it, don't you doubt. Who all does
Gabriella set out to ask here to visit?"

"Mr. Hale, of course; and dear Mr. Sharp. I hope Ephraim will be well
enough to come, too. Then there are the Winklers, from the mine; the
McLeods, from their inn at Marion; and, maybe--we've never had a
Christmas without him--maybe poor Antonio."

"Well, all I say is--if you ask him you needn't ask me. There wouldn't
be room on this whole ranch for the pair of us."

"Then, of course, it's you first. Yet, it's all so puzzling to me. If
it's a time of 'peace and good will,' why do people keep on feeling
angry with one another?"

"Jessica Trent, dast you stand there and look me in the face and say
that you have forgive that sneaky snakey manager for cheating your
mother like he did?"

"He was sorry, Aunt Sally. Every letter he sends here tells that."

"Fiddlesticks!"

"And he's punished, isn't he, even if the New York folks let him go
free, by his disappointment? I can fancy how dreadful it would seem,
did seem to think this beautiful ranch was one's own, and then
suddenly to learn that it was not."

"Oh! Jessie! You try my soul with your forgivin' and forgivin'. Next
you know you'll be sorry for Ferd, the dwarf, though 'tis he himself
what's started all this bobery against 'Forty-niner,' and eggs them
silly Winklers on to be so--so hateful. I'm glad that witless woman
did lose her ring, and I hope it'll never be straightened out. I guess
I'm out of conceit with everybody living, not exceptin' old Sally
Benton, herself!"

With this home thrust at her own ill temper, the whimsical woman
betook herself and her dangling array of patchwork to Mrs. Trent's
sitting-room; there to discuss the prospects for holiday festivities
and to take account of