e," he demurred, with a shake of the head. "You mustn't
forget how good they've been to you. Besides--they have got the right. I
gave it to them. I told them to make you like themselves."

There was a long silence. Genevieve's eyes were moodily fixed on the
floor. Her father gave her a swift glance, then went on, softly:

"I suspect, too, maybe we're both forgetting, dearie. After all, Mrs.
Kennedy did it every bit through--love. She was frightened. She was so
scared she just shook, dearie."

"She--was?" Genevieve's voice was amazed.

"Yes. I reckon that's more than half why she spoke so stern, and why
she's in her room crying this minute--as I'll warrant she is. I saw her
eyes, and I saw how her hands shook. And I saw it was all she could do
to keep from falling right on your neck--because she had you back safe
and sound. Maybe you didn't see that, dearie."

There was no answer.

"You see, their _ways_ back East, and ours, aren't alike," resumed the
man, after a time; "but I reckon their--_love_ is."

Genevieve drew a long breath. Her brown eyes were not clear.

"I reckon maybe I'll go and find--Aunt Julia," she said in a low voice.

The next moment her father sat alone on the back gallery.

CHAPTER IX

REDDY AND THE BRONCHO

There was no lack of interesting things to do that first day at the
ranch. There was one half-hour, to be sure, when five of the Happy
Hexagons sat a little quietly on the front gallery and tried to talk as
if there were no such thing as a windmill, and no such person as a girl
who could climb to the top of it; but after Genevieve and Mrs. Kennedy,
arm in arm, came through the front door--with eyes indeed, a little
misty, but with lips cheerfully smiling--every vestige of constraint
fled. Genevieve, once more in her pretty linen frock, was again the
alert little hostess, and very soon they were all off to inspect the
flower garden, the vegetable garden, the cow corral, the sheds, the
stables, and the blacksmith's shop, not forgetting Teresa, the cook, who
was making tamales in the kitchen for them, nor Pepito, Genevieve's own
horse that she rode before she went East.

"And we'll have the boys pick out some horses for you, too," cried
Genevieve, smoothing Pepito's sleek coat in response to his welcoming
whinny of delight. "I'm sure they can find something all right for us."

Tilly's eyes brightened, so, too, did Bertha's; but Cordelia spoke
hastily, her eyes bent a bit distr