with his slight smile
for a few moments and then said in cold, even tones:

"I really don't know why," and turned his back on her. Immediately she
sprang at him, shook him by the arm, and, quivering with passion, cried:

"You are not to speak to me like that, and you are not to turn your back
that way!"

"What a little princess it is," he said admiringly, "and what a time she
will give herself some day!" Then he added, smiling sadly: "Was I rude,
Gwen? Then I am sorry." Her rage was gone, and she looked as if she
could have held him by the feet. As it was, too proud to show her
feelings, she just looked at him with softening eyes, and then sat down
to the work she had refused. This was after the advent of The Pilot at
Swan Creek, and, as The Duke rode home with me that night, after long
musing he said with hesitation: "She ought to have some religion, poor
child; she will grow up a perfect little devil. The Pilot might be of
service if you could bring him up. Women need that sort of thing; it
refines, you know."

"Would she have him?" I asked.

"Question," he replied, doubtfully. "You might suggest it."

Which I did, introducing somewhat clumsily, I fear, The Duke's name.

"The Duke says he is to make me good!" she cried. "I won't have him, I
hate him and you too!" And for that day she disdained all lessons, and
when The Duke next appeared she greeted him with the exclamation, "I
won't have your old Pilot, and I don't want to be good, and--and--you
think he's no good yourself," at which the Duke opened his eyes.

"How do you know? I never said so!"

"You laughed at him to dad one day."

"Did I?" said The Duke, gravely. "Then I hasten to assure, you that I
have changed my mind. He is a good, brave man."

"He falls off his horse," she said, with contempt.

"I rather think he sticks on now," replied The Duke, repressing a smile.

"Besides," she went on, "he's just a kid; Bill said so."

"Well, he might be more ancient," acknowledged The Duke, "but in that he
is steadily improving."

"Anyway," with an air of finality, "he is not to come here."

But he did come, and under her own escort, one threatening August
evening.

"I found him in the creek," she announced, with defiant shamefacedness,
marching in The Pilot half drowned.

"I think I could have crossed," he said, apologetically, "for Louis was
getting on his feet again."

"No, you wouldn't," she protested. "You would have been down into the
canyo