y. It was just dawning upon her that
it was not so easy to control the destinies of other people, as she
had fancied.

"Oh, that is all right!" her companion responded more cheerfully; "New
York in summer is not half so bad as you people who never stay there
probably imagine."

"I don't know," said Winifred; "to me it seems dreadful to be shut up
inside brick walls, or walking on hot paving-stones, when one might be
sitting under green trees, or by rolling waves, breathing in the fresh
country air. But I suppose I feel so because while I was growing up I
never lived in a large city."

"Indeed! How was that? I should think your father's profession would
have kept him in the city."

"Oh, it does now, of course; but for years after my mother's death he
was so broken down that he could not bear to mix with people at all,
and he chose to bury himself out on a Western ranch, and there I grew
up with no more training than the little Indian girls who used to come
to the house with beads and things to sell. It was a queer life for a
girl; but it was great sport."

Winifred had almost forgotten her companion for the moment in her
thoughts of the past; but as he rubbed his hand across his forehead in
the effort to recall something, she mistook the gesture for a sign of
weariness, and reproached herself for her egotistical garrulity.

"I do wish," she said hastily, "that there were some way out of this
unlucky matter,--some way which would not send you back so
unseasonably."

"Never mind that," Flint answered; "my vacation was almost at an end,
anyway. I am really needed now at the office of the 'Trans-Continental.'"

"The 'Trans-Continental'?" echoed Winifred. "Do you work on that
magazine?"

"Yes, I do a little writing for it occasionally."

"Then perhaps you know the editor--the chief editor, I mean."

"Yes, he is a friend of mine."

"I envy you the privilege of calling such a man your friend. Oh, you
may smile if you choose, but perhaps, after all, you do not know him
as well as I do. I have never seen him, I don't even know his name,
and yet I have a clear picture of him in my mind. And he has been so
kind--so good to me. His letters have helped me more than he will ever
know." Here a sudden thought seemed to strike the girl, and she
lifted beseeching eyes to his face.

"You won't try to make him dislike me, will you? I know you never did
like me. I saw it the first time we met, when I was driving that
wretch