endable young person a
well-earned holiday--a little journey in which she won't have to chaffer
with the transit people. Have you chosen your route to the western
somewhere?"

Miss Brentwood had the fair, transparent skin that tells tales, and the
blue-gray eyes were apt to confirm them. David Kent's letter was hidden in
the folds of her loose-waisted morning gown, and she fancied it stirred
like a thing alive to remind her of its message. Ormsby was looking past
her to the old-fashioned ormolu clock on the high mantel, comparing the
time with his watch, but he was not oblivious of the telltale flush.

"There is nothing embarrassing about the choosing of a route, is there?"
he queried.

"Oh, no; being true Americans, we don't know one route from another in our
own country," she confessed. "But at the western end of it we want to go
over the Western Pacific."

Ormsby knew the West by rail routes as one who travels much for
time-killing purposes.

"It's a rather roundabout cow-path," he objected. "The Overland Short Line
is a good bit more direct; not to mention the service, which is a lot
better."

But Elinor had made her small concession to David Kent's letter, and she
would not withdraw it.

"Probably you don't own any Western Pacific stock," she suggested. "We do;
and we mean to be loyal to our salt."

Ormsby laughed.

"I see Western Pacific has gone down a few points since the election of
Governor Bucks. If I had any, I'd wire my broker to sell."

"We are not so easily frightened," she asserted; adding, with a touch of
the austerity which was her Puritan birthright: "Nor quite so
conscienceless as you men."

"Conscience," he repeated half absently; "is there any room for such an
out-of-date thing in a nation of successfulists? But seriously; you ought
to get rid of Western Pacific. There can be no possible question of
conscience involved."

"I don't agree with you," she retorted with prompt decision. "If we were
to sell now it would be because we were afraid it might prove to be a bad
investment. Therefore, for the sake of a presumably ignorant buyer, we
have no right to sell."

He smiled leniently.

"All of which goes to prove that you three lone women need a guardian. But
I mustn't keep you any longer from Abigail and the trunks. What time shall
I send the expediters after your luggage?"

She told him, and went with him to the door.

"Please don't think me ungrateful," she said, when she had t