eech of Jean's and she
deserved the speedy punishment she received.

The three ranch girls found the hotel they sought and were given the
number of Mrs. Harmon's sitting room. They hesitated for a minute
outside her door. "I don't know why I feel so nervous about going in,
just as though something dreadful was going to happen," Jack whispered
softly. "I don't even like to knock."

"I know what is troubling you, Jack," Olive murmured gently. "None of us
has confessed it to the other, but I believe we are nervous about
meeting Elizabeth Harmon. We don't know how ill she is or whether she is
even able to walk, and we are afraid we may do or say the wrong thing."

"I am sure you won't, Olive," Jack returned, as she summoned courage to
knock at the closed door. The girls thought they heard a faint response
from the inside, and walked slowly into the room, hesitating for a
moment because of the sudden change from daylight to almost complete
darkness. The blinds at the windows were drawn closely down, and there
was no light except that which shone from two rose-colored candles that
burned on the tall mantel-piece. No one seemed to be in the room as Jean
started blindly forward. Olive put out her hand to stop her, but she was
not in time, for at the same instant Jean plunged blindly into a small
table loaded with teacups, and the quiet room echoed with the noise of
crashing china and embarrassed exclamations from poor Jean.

The next moment Jack and Olive saw a fragile figure rise up from an
immense leather chair and swing herself toward them on a single crutch.
She was so thin and delicate and dressed in such an exquisite clinging
white gown that she looked like the ghost of a girl, the only color
about whom was the mass of shining red-gold hair that hung in a loose
cloud over her shoulders.

"Oh, I am so sorry and ashamed!" Jean murmured miserably, her brown eyes
filling with tears, as she surveyed the havoc she had wrought.

"Please don't mind; it was all my fault." Elizabeth Harmon put out a
small, hot hand and touched Jean's fingers shyly. "I know I ought not
to have had the room so dark when you came in, but I have a fancy for
meeting people for the first time in the soft candle light."

Elizabeth spoke the last words gently and Jack tried to conceal it, but
her hostess knew that the girl with the sympathetic warm gray eyes
understood why she preferred to meet strangers in a semi-darkness.

Elizabeth was not a pre