mething
rare and fine. That meant that Ann was taken for granted. And being taken
for granted meant nine-tenths the battle.

It would be fun to fool the catalogue folks. And she need have no
compunctions about lowering the standard of art because the picture she
had found out in the back room and surreptitiously hung in the night
belonged in the gallery a great deal more than some of the pictures which
had been solemnly carried in the front way. It was the catalogue folks,
rather than the lovers of art, were being imposed upon.

And Mrs. Prescott, though to be sure a maker of catalogues, was also a
lover of art. There lay Katie's hope for her, and apology to her.

Though she was apprehensive, a stronger light was to be turned on--that
was indisputable. "You and I know, dear Queen," Katie confided to the
member of her sex lying at her feet, "that men are not at all difficult.
You can get them to swallow most anything--if the girl in the case is
beautiful enough. And feminine enough! Masculine dotes on discovering
feminine--but have you ever noticed what the rest of the feminine dote on
doing to that discovery? Women can even look at wondrous soft brown eyes
and lovely tender mouths through those 'Who was your father?' 'specs'
they keep so well dusted. The manner of holding a teacup is more
important than the heart's deep dreams. When it comes to passing
inspection, the soul's not in it with the fork. We know 'em--don't we,
old Queen?"

Queen wagged concurrence, and Katie pulled herself sternly back to
her letters.

Mrs. Prescott spoke of the chance of her son's being ordered away. "I
hope not," she wrote, "for I want the quiet summer for him. And for
myself, too. The great trees and the river, and you there, dear Katie, it
seems the thing I most desire. But we of the army learn often to
relinquish the things we most desire. We, the homeless, for in the
abiding sense we are homeless, make homes possible. Think of it with
pride sometimes, Katie. Our girls think of it all too little now. I
sometimes wonder how they can forego that just pride in their traditions.
During this spring in the West my thoughts have many times turned to
those other days, days when men like your father and my husband performed
the frontier service which made the West of to-day possible. Recently at
a dinner I heard a young woman, one of the 'advanced' type, and I am
sorry to say of army people, speak laughingly to one of our men of the
useles