ain and again that she loved it still. Poor girl, she did not yet
know that this was but the maternal love of a woman's heart, pitying,
tender and remembering, to be sure, but not that love over which the
morning stars sang together at the beginning of the world.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE WAY OF A MAID

The Halfway House was an oasis in the desert. To-day it was an oasis
and a battle ground. Franklin watched Mary Ellen as she passed quietly
about the long, low room, engaged in household duties which she
performed deftly as any servant. He compared these rude necessities
with the associations amid which he knew this girl had been nurtured,
and the thought gave him nothing but dissatisfaction and rebellion. He
longed to give her all the aid of his own strength, and to place her
again, as he felt he some day might, in something of the old ease and
comfort, if not in the same surroundings. Yet, as he bethought himself
of the apparent hopelessness of all this, he set his teeth in a mental
protest near akin to anger. He shifted in his seat and choked in his
throat a sound that was half a groan. Presently he rose, and excusing
himself, went out to join Buford at the corral.

"Come," said the latter, "and I'll show you around over our
improvements while we are waitin' for a bite to eat. We are goin' to
have a great place here some day. Besides our own land, Miss Beauchamp
and our servant have a quarter-section each adjoinin' us on the west.
If ever this land comes to be worth anything at all, we ought to grow
into something worth while."

"Yes," said Franklin, "it will make you rich," and as they walked about
he pointed out with Western enthusiasm the merits of the country
round-about.

The "bite to eat" was in time duly announced by a loud, sonorous note
that arose swelling upon the air. Aunt Lucy appeared at the kitchen
door, her fat cheeks distended, blowing a conch as though this were
Tidewater over again.

The long table was spread in the large room of general assembly, this
room being, as has been mentioned, excavated from the earth, so that,
as they sat at table, their heads were perhaps nearly level with the
surface of the ground. The short side walls, topped with a heavy
earthen roof made of this sort of abode a domicile rude and clumsy
enough, but one not lacking in a certain comfort. In the winter it was
naturally warm, and in the summer it was cool, the air, caught at
either end by the gable of