Margaret Cameron

“ Nan Porter was too astute a woman to uncover the curiosity she was equally human enough to feel. Therefore she probed carefully, thus:
"Well, just now, there's Ned and Ethel and Sunshine—and us."
"And a lot you'd any of you care! Ned doesn't know lace from mosquito-netting—in fact, he'd probably give the preference to the latter because there are people who find it useful; Ethel is—Ethel," with a little grimace, "Sunshine is resigned to my clothes—and me. Poor thing! It must be hard to be dependent for one's living upon propriety and resignation! ”

“ Mercy! What a temper I'm in! But I'm so tired of things, Nan! Somehow, nothing has any flavor. I suppose it's partly my ankle. It's horrid to limp through the world!"
"How and when and where did you sprain that ankle? You haven't told me."
"Oh, it was simply a bit of stupidity. I fell in getting out of a vehicle—out West. It really didn't amount to much at first, but I used it too soon, and I've been lame ever since. And I'm tired! And there's nothing to do—that's worth doing! And Sunshine swims in tears all the time! ”

“ This time she met his glance rather nervously—half pleading, half defiant.
"Well, I'll be hanged!" reiterated his friend. "If a woman gave me the slip that way, I'd let her go!"
"No, you wouldn't, Tom," quietly replied Otis, with one quick, deep glance into Cecily's baffling eyes. "Not this woman."
"Well, then, if it's as serious as that, let's find her! Who is she?" Tom was as unconscious of the undercurrent as he had earlier been of the gunpowder.
"She is—" said Bradford, and paused. Cecily opened her eyes wide and looked straight at him. Nan held her breath.
"Well?" urged Porter. ”

“ Santa Barbara, for example, where there's no railroad at all, and a steamer only once in four or five days?"
"There's a daily stage," grimly said Bradford, "a large, red stage, swung on leathern straps, which rivals a howdah for discomfort and a snail for leisureliness." ”

“ Cecily was wickedly smiling. "I'm merely here for dinner."
He turned to Nan for refutation.
"Mrs. Mosgrove is visiting her cousins, the Hinsdales, who are our neighbors," she explained.
"By the way, Otis, I want you to know Hinsdale," broke in Porter. "He'll be just the man to interest in that new company you're forming. I'll take you over there to-morrow."
Bradford looked at Cecily. It might have been thought that his glance was triumphant. ”

“ Jump!' he yelled. 'You're too heavy! You're pulling him up in the air!'"
Tom and Nan shouted with laughter, and Cecily, finding herself in Rome, succeeded in emulating the Romans to the extent of contributing a weary smile. Bradford gravely waited for the merriment to die away. "That's what I did," he said, ruefully. "I laughed. The girls rolled out at the back; Billy jumped; the Marquis resumed a horizontal position, and dropped one ear out at right angles to his head, with an innocently inquiring expression that would have done credit to a diplomat ”

“ He stood perfectly still, and the long shafts—have I said that the cart was several sizes too large for him?—the long shafts, tipped up by the weight in the back of the cart, pointed above his ears. 'Git up!' shouted Billy. The Marquis turned back one ear, and tried to rub his nose on his foreleg; but the shaft interfered with freedom of action, so he turned his head and looked reproachfully back at Billy. The fascinating one laughed. 'Make him go, Billy,' she said. 'He mustn't be humored. It's bad for men and burros to be humored. They need discipline,' she said. ”

“ Not so her unsuspicious spouse. Gunpowder? Nonsense! Women are always smelling smoke. He met Nan's danger signals with a puzzled stare, which ended in a chuckle.
"Go on, Otis," he said. "Tell it to 'em. Begin with the girl."
"Perhaps Mrs. Mosgrove will give me the opportunity of telling her the story to-morrow," suggested Bradford. "It's rather a long one, and Porter has already heard the first part of it. Shall we leave it until we call upon you to-morrow?" he asked her. ”

“ Porter.
"I think not—just now."
"And the identity of—the lady?" Cecily leaned a little toward him, her eyes very brilliant.
"Is—pardon me—my secret."
"Delightful!" murmured Mrs. Mosgrove, leaning back in her chair. "I begin to suspect you, Mr. Bradford, of cleverness. So few men know the value of suspense!"
"Hm!" said Otis, dryly; "we should. We're so often called upon to illustrate it." She laughed.
"Then you didn't go up Pike's Peak, after all?" asked Nan.
"No; I stayed over only one train in Denver." ”

“ However, we finally got her into the cart—the other girl and I—and we sent Billy post-haste for a doctor, and then we started home with her through the dusk. Nobody who's never been in Santa Barbara knows what the dusk is there," he said, softly. "It's golden and amethyst and gray, all mixed up together and blended—and it's fragrant. The night before we had walked together in the dusk on the beach, she and I, and—somehow I thought that perhaps some day she'd let me tell her what that dusk—with her—meant to me." He looked across the table at Cecily ”

“ She had long since sniffed gunpowder in the air, but was still uncertain as to whether it indicated sharp-shooting or fire-works. In any event it would do no harm to discourage a possible breach of neutrality. ”