ore the dinner and dance, in fact--she came through one of the long,
open windows upon the veranda, right behind a group of three of the
girls. It was by chance she heard one of them say:

"Well, I don't care, Sue, I think she is real nice. You are awfully
critical."

"I can't bear dowdy people," drawled Sue Latrop. "I know she'll be a
sight at that dinner to-morrow night. My goodness! if for nothing else
I'd come to see how she looks in her 'best bib and tucker' and how that
queer old man acts when he is what he calls 'all dolled up.'"

"Sh!" warned the third girl. "Somebody will hear you."

"Pooh! If they do?" returned Sue Latrop, carelessly.

"If I were you," said the other girl, with warmth, "I wouldn't accept an
invitation to dine with people whom I expected to make fun of."

"Silly!" laughed the girl from Boston. "I've got to find enjoyment
somewhere--and there's little enough of it in this Panhandle. I'll be
glad when father writes saying that I can come home once again."

"How about your going to this dance, Sue?" chuckled one of the girls,
suddenly. "I thought your doctor had forbidden dancing for this summer?"

"I think I see myself dancing with these cowboys that they are going to
invite," scoffed Sue. "And Pratt can't dance yet. There isn't anybody
worth dancing with in our crowd now."

"Hasn't the Captain asked you for a dance?" queried her friend,
roguishly.

"I should say not!" gasped Sue. "Fancy!"

"You must not act as though his invitation insulted you, Sue Latrop,"
said one of the other girls, rather tartly. "You might as well
understand, first as last, that we are all fond of Captain Rugley.
Besides, he's a very influential man and one of the wealthiest in this
part of the Panhandle."

"_Nouveau-riche_," sniffed Miss Sue, with a toss of her head.

"If that means newly rich, why, he's not!" exclaimed the other girl,
with continued warmth. "It's true, he didn't make his money baking
beans, or bean-pots; nor by drying and selling pollock and calling it
'codfish.' I believe one has to make his money in some such way to break
into Boston society?"

"Something like that," responded Sue, calmly.

"Well, the old Captain is very, very wealthy," went on his champion. "If
you'd ever been much inside this big house, you'd see it is so. And they
say he has a treasure chest containing jewels of fabulous value."

"A treasure chest!" ejaculated the Boston girl.

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"Now you are tryin