ter on four
legs, to love me."

But she was hungry for the companionship of the animals whom she had seen
daily on the ranch.

"Why, even the yip of a coyote would be sweet," she mused, putting her
head out of the window and scanning nothing but chimneys and tin roofs,
with bare little yards far below.

Finally she heard a Japanese gong's mellow note, and presumed it must
announce luncheon. It was already two o'clock. People who breakfasted at
nine or ten, of course did not need a midday meal.

"I expect they don't have supper till bedtime," thought Helen.

First she hid her wallet in the bottom of her trunk, locked the trunk and
set it up on end in the closet. Then she locked the closet door and took
out the key, hiding the latter under the edge of the carpet.

"I'm getting as bad as the rest of 'em," she muttered. "I won't trust
anybody, either. Now for meeting my dear cousins at lunch."

She had slipped into one of the simple house dresses she had worn at the
ranch. She had noticed that forenoon that both Belle and Hortense
Starkweather were dressed in the most modish of gowns--as elaborate as
those of fashionable ladies. With no mother to say them nay, these young
girls aped every new fashion as they pleased.

Helen started downstairs at first with her usual light step. Then she
bethought herself, stumbled on a stair, slipped part of the way, and
continued to the very bottom of the last flight with a noise and clatter
which must have announced her coming long in advance of her actual
presence.

"I don't want to play eavesdropper again," she told herself, grimly. "I
always understood that listeners hear no good of themselves, and now I
know it to be a fact."

Gregson stood at the bottom of the last flight. His face was as wooden as
ever, but he managed to open his lips far enough to observe:

"Luncheon is served in the breakfast room, Miss."

A sweep of his arm pointed the way. Then she saw old Lawdor pottering in
and out of a room into which she had not yet looked.

It proved to be a sunny, small dining-room. When alone the family usually
ate here, Helen discovered. The real dining-room was big enough for a
dancing floor, with an enormous table, preposterously heavy furniture all
around the four sides of the room, and an air of gloom that would have
removed, before the food appeared, even, all trace of a healthy appetite.

When Helen entered the brighter apartment her three cousins were already
befo