I swear. Go and
tell her we have never learned to read."

I demurred. Finally we spun a dollar to decide upon which of us lay
the brutal duty of turning away the stranger within our gates. Fortune
frowned on me, and I rose reluctantly from my chair.

"Air you the hired man?" said the woman in the buggy, as I looked
askance into her face.

"I work here," I replied, "for my board--which is not of the best."

"Ye seem kinder thin. Say--air the lords to home?"

"The lords?"

"Yes, the lords. They tole me back ther," she jerked her head in the
direction of the village, "that two English lords owned a big cattle-
ranch right here; an' I thought, mebbee, that they'd like ter see--
me."

A pathetic accent of doubt quavered upon the personal pronoun.

"Ye kin tell 'em," she continued, "that I'm here. Yes, sir, I'm a
book-agent, an' my book will interest them--sure."

Her eyes, soft blue eyes, bespoke hope; her lips quivered with tell-
tale anxiety. Something inharmonious about the little woman, a queer
lack of adjustment between voice and mouth, struck me as singular, but
not unpleasing.

"It's called," she pleaded, in the tenderest tones, "_A Golden Word
from Mother_. I sell it bound in cloth, sheep, or moroccy. It's
perfectly lovely--in moroccy."

"One of the--er--lords," said I gravely, "is here. I'll call him. I
think he can read."

This, according to our fraternal code, was rank treachery, yet I felt
no traitor. Ajax obeyed my summons, and, sauntering across the sun-
baked yard, lifted his hat to the visitor. She bowed politely, and
blinked, with short-sighted eyes, at my brother's overalls and
tattered canvas shirt. I have seen Ajax, in Piccadilly, glorious in a
frock-coat and varnished boots. I have seen him, as Gloriana saw him
for the first time, in rags that might provoke the scorn of Lazarus.
With the thermometer at a hundred in the shade, custom curtseys to
convenience. Ajax boasted with reason that the loosening of a single
safety-pin left him in condition for a plunge into the pool at the
foot of the corral.

"I hope you're well, lord," said the little woman; "an' if ye ain't,
why--what I've got here'll do ye more good than a doctor. I reckon ye
hev a mother, an' naterally she thinks the world of ye. Well, sir, I
bring ye a golden word from her very lips. Jest listen to this. I
ain't much on the elocute, but I'm goin' ter do my best."

We listened patiently as she declaimed half a page of wretch