are fresh from this anarchistic conclave at the Opera House. You can
imagine what the stock of the Western Pacific, or of any other foreign
corporation doing business in this State, will be worth in six months
after Bucks and his crowd get into the saddle."

"You speak as if the result of the election were a foregone conclusion. I
hope it isn't. But we were talking more particularly of Miss Brentwood,
and your personal responsibilities." The belated train was whistling for
the lower yard, and Loring was determined to say all that was in his mind.

"Yes; go on. I'm anxious to hear--more anxious than I seem to be,
perhaps."

"Well, she is coming West, after a bit. She, and her sister and the
mother. Mrs. Brentwood's asthma is worse, and the wise men have ordered
her to the interior. I thought you'd like to know."

"Is she--are they coming this way?" asked Kent.

The train was in, and the porter had fetched Loring's hand-bag from the
check-stand. The guest paused with one foot on the step of the
sleeping-car.

"If I were you, David, I'd write and ask; I should, by Jove. It would be a
tremendously cheeky thing to do, of course, having such a slight
acquaintance with her as you have; but I'll be hanged if I shouldn't
chance it. And in the mean time, if I don't go back East next week, you'll
hear from me. When you do, or if you do, take a day off and run up to the
capital. I shall need you. Good-by."

Kent watched the train pull out; stood looking after it until the two red
eyes of the rear signals had disappeared in the dusty darkness of the
illimitable plain. Then he went to his rooms, to the one which was called
by courtesy his office, and without allowing himself time for a nice
balancing of the pros and cons, squared himself at the desk to write a
letter.

III

THE BOSTONIANS

It was precisely on the day set for the Brentwoods' westward flitting that
the postman, making his morning round, delivered David Kent's asking at
the house in the Back Bay sub-district. Elinor was busy packing for the
migration, but she left Penelope and the maid to cope with the problem of
compressing two trunkfuls into one while she read the letter, and she was
reading it a second time when Mr. Brookes Ormsby's card came up.

"You go, Penelope," she begged. "There is so much to do."

"Not I," said the younger sister, cavalierly; "he didn't come to see me."
Whereupon Elinor smoothed the two small wrinkles of impatience out