utts awaited the buggy, in the tiny porch, and had obeyed
Isabel's behest to look her prettiest. She wore a large red hat covered
with feathers shading into pink, and a claret-colored frock that fitted
her superb figure in a fashion that caused Isabel to draw her brows
together and suggest a dust-coat.

"It is too sweet of you," said Miss Boutts, as she sprang into the
buggy. "I feel so flattered when you take any notice of insignificant
little me. Do tell me where we are going and why you told me to look my
prettiest!"

"I must go out to Lumalitas to consult certain farmer's books in my
cousin's library, and I thought it only fair to provide him with
entertainment while I am busy. It seems the gossips do not approve of my
going out there alone, and as I was obliged to go I did not think it
worth while to make a martyr of Mr. Gwynne."

Miss Boutts blushed and tossed her head. "He called on me and sent me
flowers," she said, in innocent triumph. "I was so sorry to miss him.
All the girls are fearfully jealous."

"Do you like him?" asked Isabel, absently.

"Well--a little. He is new, and English, and different. There's not much
to choose from here, and I don't know any of the swells in San
Francisco. I can't say he is my ideal--that has always been an immensely
tall man with big blue eyes and a tawny moustache; and Mr. Gwynne is
just a sort of blond, no color in his hair at all, and I never did care
much for gray eyes. He's tall enough, and the girls think him
'distinguished,' but nobody could call him big. Besides, he doesn't know
how to say sweet things one little bit. I went out on the veranda with
him at your party, and it was a heavenly night, and all he asked me was
if I wasn't afraid of catching cold, and then he wandered on about
American girls exposing themselves foolishly and wearing too thin shoes
and eating too many sweets. Fancy a man talking like that to a girl at
night on a veranda! I never felt so flat."

Isabel glanced curiously at the beautiful empty creature. Her black eyes
looked like wells of sentiment, and her body a mould for a new race of
men.

"Tell me," she exclaimed, impulsively. "What do you expect a man to do
under such circumstances--to--a--kiss you?" She brought out the last
with some effort, her old-fashioned training suddenly suggesting that
she could better understand the downfall of the girl she had befriended
in Paris than the vulgarities of the shallow.

Miss Boutts laughed a