r the glare of the
tawny plains) as the voice of her hostess was to her ears, which still
ached with the noise of profane and vulgar speech.

Redfield heard her coming and met her half-way, and with stately ceremony
showed her a seat. "I fear you will need something stronger than tea after
my exhausting conversation."

"I hope, Hugh, you were not in one of your talking moods?"

"I was, Eleanor. I talked incessantly, barring an occasional jolt of the
machine."

"You poor thing!" This to Virginia. "Truly you deserve a two hours' rest
before dinner, for our dinner is always a talk-fest, and to-night, with
Senator Bridges here, it will be a convention."

He turned to Virginia. "We were talking old times 'before the war,' and
you know it never tires veterans to run over their ancient campaigns--does
it, Lee Virginia?"

As they talked Mrs. Redfield studied the girl with increasing interest and
favor, and soon got at her point of view. She even secured a little more
of her story, which matched fairly well with the account her husband had
given. Her prejudices were swept away, and she treated her young guest as
one well-born and well-educated woman treats another.

At last she said: "We dress for dinner, but any frock you have will do. We
are not ironclad in our rules. There will be some neighbors in, but it
isn't in any sense a 'party.'"

Lee Virginia went to her room, borne high upon a new conception of the
possibilities of the West. It was glorious to think that one could enjoy
the refinement, the comfort of the East at the same time that one dwelt
within the inspiring shadow of the range. She caught some prophetic hint
in all this of the future age when each of these foot-hills would be
peopled by those to whom cleanliness of mind and grace of body were
habitual. Standing on the little balcony which filled the front of her
windows, she looked away at the towering heights, smoky purple against a
sky of burning gold, and her eyes expanded like those of the young eagle
when about to launch himself upon the sunset wind.

The roar of a waterfall came to her ears, and afar on the sage-green
carpet of the lower mesa a horseman was galloping swiftly. Far to the left
of this smoothly sculptured table-land a band of cattle fed, while under
her eyes, formal as a suburban home, lay a garden of old-fashioned English
flowers. It was a singular and moving union of the old and new--the East
and the West.

On her table and on th