ith curt emphasis.

"Ye did not--Why not?"

"I had too much to do." This was a prevarication which she instantly
repented. "Besides, they didn't turn up."

"I'm sorry. I was hoping you'd had a good try at the new horse. Ye must
mount him for me to see this afternoon." Later he said: "I'm feeling
better each day now; soon I'll be able to take that trip East. Do you
get ready at your ease."

The thought of this trip, hitherto so wonderful in its possibilities,
afforded her no pleasure; it scarcely interested her. And when another
day went by with no further call or word from Ben Fordyce, she began to
lose faith in her new-found friends and in herself.

"They had enough of me," she said, bitterly. "I'm not their style." And
in this lay her first acknowledgment of money's inefficiency: it cannot
buy the friends you really care for.

On the third day Fordyce called her up on the 'phone to say that Alice
had been ill. "Our ride that day was a little too much for her," he
explained, "but she will be all right again soon. I think we can go
again to-morrow."

This explanation brought sunshine back into the Haney castle, and its
mistress went about the halls singing softly. In the afternoon, as she
and Mart were starting on their "constitutional" she proposed that they
call to see how Alice was. This Haney was glad to do. "I liked the
little woman," said he; "she's sharp as a tack. And, besides, she
listened to me gabble," he added.

Miss Heath was stopping in the home of a friend--a rather handsome
house, in the midst of thick shrubbery; and they found her wrapped in a
blanket and sitting on the porch in a steamer-chair, with Ben reading to
her. They were both instant and cordial in their demands that the
Captain alight and come in, and Ben went down the walk to get him, while
Alice, with envious, wistful eyes answered the glowing girl: "Oh no, I
don't think the ride did me any harm. I have these little back-sets now
and then. I'm glad you came."

"How thin her hands are," thought Bertha. And she saw, too, that the
delicate face was wrinkled and withered.

Reading compassion in the girl's glance, Alice continued, brightly:
"I'll be up to-morrow. I'm like a cork--nothing permanently depresses
me. I'm suffering just now from an error of thought!"

Bertha only smiled, and the gleam of her teeth, white and even as rows
of corn, produced in her face the effect of innocent humor like that of
a child. Then she said: "I've