y eyes that augured well for him.

"Well, Mamie, how do we like bein' an heiress? How do we like layin'
over all the gals between this and 'Frisco?"

"Eh?"

She had not heard him. The tender beautiful eyes were engaged in an
anticipatory examination of the remembered shelves in the "Fancy
Emporium" at Sacramento; in reading the admiration of the clerks; in
glancing down a little criticisingly at the broad cowhide brogues that
strode at her side; in looking up the road for the stage-coach; in
regarding the fit of her new gloves--everywhere but in the loving eyes
of the man beside her.

He, however, repeated the question, touched with her charming
preoccupation, and passing his arm around her little waist.

"I like it well enough, pa, you know!" she said, slightly disengaging
his arm, but adding a perfunctory little squeeze to his elbow to soften
the separation. "I always had an idea SOMETHING would happen. I
suppose I'm looking like a fright," she added; "but ma made me hurry to
get away before Don Caesar came."

"And you didn't want to go without seeing him?" he added, archly.

"I didn't want him to see me in this frock," said Mamie, simply. "I
reckon that's why ma made me change," she added, with a slight laugh.

"Well I reckon you're allus good enough for him in any dress," said
Mulrady, watching her attentively; "and more than a match for him NOW,"
he added, triumphantly.

"I don't know about that," said Mamie. "He's been rich all the time,
and his father and grandfather before him; while we've been poor and
his tenants."

His face changed; the look of bewilderment, with which he had followed
her words, gave way to one of pain, and then of anger. "Did he get off
such stuff as that?" he asked, quickly.

"No. I'd like to catch him at it," responded Mamie, promptly. "There's
better nor him to be had for the asking now."

They had walked on a few moments in aggrieved silence, and the Chinaman
might have imagined some misfortune had just befallen them. But
Mamie's teeth shone again between her parted lips. "La, pa! it ain't
that! He cares everything for me, and I do for him; and if ma hadn't
got new ideas--" She stopped suddenly.

"What new ideas?" queried her father, anxiously.

"Oh, nothing! I wish, pa, you'd put on your other boots! Everybody can
see these are made for the farrows. And you ain't a market gardener
any more."

"What am I, then?" asked Mulrady, with a half-pleased, half-unea