of their life on the plains in their
infant Indian captivity. But there was no mistaking the general
sentiment. The criticisms of a small town may become inevasible. Atherly
determined to take the first opportunity to leave Rough and Ready. He
was rich; his property was secure; there was no reason why he should
stay where his family pretensions were a drawback. And a further
circumstance determined his resolution.

He was awaiting his sister in his new house on a little crest above
the town. She had been at the time of her mother's death, and since, a
private boarder in the Sacred Heart Convent at Santa Clara, whence she
had been summoned to the funeral, but had returned the next day. Few
people had noticed in her brother's carriage the veiled figure which
might have belonged to one of the religious orders; still less did they
remember the dark, lank, heavy-browed girl who had sometimes been seen
about Rough and Ready. For she had her brother's melancholy, and greater
reticence, and had continued of her own free will, long after her
girlish pupilage at the convent, to live secluded under its maternal
roof without taking orders. A general suspicion that she was either a
religious "crank," or considered herself too good to live in a mountain
mining town, had not contributed to her brother's popularity. In her
abstraction from worldly ambitions she had, naturally, taken no part
in her brother's family pretensions. He had given her an independent
allowance, and she was supposed to be equally a sharer in his good
fortune. Yet she had suddenly declared her intention of returning
to Atherly, to consult him on affairs of importance. Peter was both
surprised and eager; there was but little affection between them, but,
preoccupied with his one idea, he was satisfied that she wanted to talk
about the family.

But he was amazed, disappointed, and disconcerted. For Jenny Atherly,
the sober recluse of Santa Clara, hidden in her sombre draperies at the
funeral, was no longer to be recognized in the fashionable, smartly but
somewhat over-dressed woman he saw before him. In spite of her large
features and the distinguishing Roman nose, like his own, she looked
even pretty in her excitement. She had left the convent, she was tired
of the life there, she was satisfied that a religious vocation would not
suit her. In brief, she intended to enjoy herself like other women.
If he really felt a pride in the family he ought to take her out, l