ned, dear?"

"Not in the least," said Christie, with a strange little laugh. "Go to
sleep."

CHAPTER III

The five impulsive millionaires of Devil's Ford fulfilled not a few of
their most extravagant promises. In less than six weeks Mr. Carr and
his daughters were installed in a new house, built near the site of the
double cabin, which was again transferred to the settlement, in order
to give greater seclusion to the fair guests. It was a long, roomy,
one-storied villa, with a not unpicturesque combination of deep veranda
and trellis work, which relieved the flat monotony of the interior and
the barrenness of the freshly-cleared ground. An upright piano, brought
from Sacramento, occupied the corner of the parlor. A suite of gorgeous
furniture, whose pronounced and extravagant glories the young girls
instinctively hid under home-made linen covers, had also been spoils
from afar. Elsewhere the house was filled with ornaments and decorations
that in their incongruity forcibly recalled the gilded plate-glass
mirrors of the bedroom in the old cabin. In the hasty furnishing of
this Aladdin's palace, the slaves of the ring had evidently seized
upon anything that would add to its glory, without reference always to
fitness.

"I wish it didn't look so cussedly like a robber's cave," said George
Kearney, when they were taking a quiet preliminary survey of the
unclassified treasures, before the Carrs took possession.

"Or a gambling hell," said his brother reflectively.

"It's about the same thing, I reckon," said Dick Mattingly, who was
supposed, in his fiery youth, to have encountered the similarity.

Nevertheless, the two girls managed to bestow the heterogeneous
collection with tasteful adaptation to their needs. A crystal
chandelier, which had once lent a fascinating illusion to the game of
Monte, hung unlighted in the broad hall, where a few other bizarre and
public articles were relegated. A long red sofa or bench, which had done
duty beside a billiard-table found a place here also. Indeed, it is to
be feared that some of the more rustic and bashful youths of Devil's
Ford, who had felt it incumbent upon them to pay their respects to
the new-comers, were more at ease in this vestibule than in the arcana
beyond, whose glories they could see through the open door. To others,
it represented a recognized state of probation before their re-entree
into civilization again. "I reckon, if you don't mind, miss," said th