ad finished and kissing her on both cheeks. "And you
only ten years old?"

"But, you see," said Helen, more quietly, "we are brought up that way in
Montana. We would die a thousand deaths if we were taught to be afraid of
anything on four legs."

"It must be an exceedingly crude country," remarked Hortense, her nose
tip-tilted.

"Shocking!" agreed Belle.

"I'd like to go there," announced Flossie, suddenly. "I think it must be
fine."

"Quite right," agreed Miss Van Ramsden.

The older Starkweather girls could not go against their most influential
caller. They were only too glad to have the Van Ramsden girl come to see
them. But while the group were discussing Helen's story, the girl from
Sunset Ranch stole away and went up to her room.

She had not meant to tell about her life in the West--not in just this
way. She had tried to talk about as her cousins expected her to, when once
she got into the story; but its effect upon the visitors had not been just
what either the Starkweather girls, or Helen herself, had expected.

She saw that she was much out of the good graces of Belle and Hortense at
dinner; they hardly spoke to her. But Flossie seemed to delight in rubbing
her sisters against the grain.

"Oh, Pa," she cried, "when Helen goes home, let me go with her; will you?
I'd just love to be on a ranch for a while--I know I should! And I _do_
need a vacation."

"Nonsense, Floss!" gasped Hortense.

"You are a perfectly vulgar little thing," declared Belle. "I don't know
where you get such low tastes."

Mr. Starkweather looked at his youngest daughter in amazement. "How very
ridiculous," he said. "Ahem! You do not know what you ask, Flossie."

"Oh! I never can have anything I want," whined Miss Flossie. "And it must
be great fun out on that ranch. You ought to hear Helen tell about it,
Pa."

"Ahem! I have no interest in such things," said her father, sternly. "Nor
should you. No well conducted and well brought up girl would wish to live
among such rude surroundings."

"Very true, Pa," sighed Hortense, shrugging her shoulders.

"You are a very common little thing, with very common tastes, Floss,"
admonished her oldest sister.

Now, all this was whipping Helen over Flossie's shoulders. The latter
grinned wickedly; but Helen felt hurt. These people were determined to
consider Sunset Ranch an utterly uncivilized place, and her associates
there beneath contempt.

The following morning she set out to find