ing diffidently a little in the
rear.

"It's nearly supper time," he informed them smiling. "And Andy here," he
indicated young Rawlinson, who grinned an acknowledgment, "says that
everybody has supper sharp on the minute of six. So what do you say if
we go up to the house and have a little refreshment?"

The girls were not altogether reluctant to obey, much as they desired a
closer look at the bronchos, for they realized that they were pretty
hungry.

The ranch house was one of those quaint old structures which had begun
as a tiny, one-story frame cottage and had gradually been added to until
now it seemed, Betty said, to "spread all over the landscape." It had
porches and doors in the most unexpected places, but the whole house was
painted such an immaculate white and the shutters were such a friendly
green that the effect of the place was indescribably charming.

"If the house is as clean inside as it looks outside," whispered Grace
to Betty as Andy Rawlinson led them up on to one of the many porches,
"I'll never dare go in. I never felt so mussy and dirty in all my life."

"Never mind, we're all in the same boat," said Betty encouragingly, and
then they stepped into one of the pleasantest rooms they had ever seen.

It was big and cool and airy, in spite of the fact that supper
preparations were going on at one end of it. Rough picturesque looking
chairs were scattered about, and over near the windows a long table was
invitingly set for six. And oh, the delicious odor of cooking things
that was wafted on the air!

At sight of them a stout but immaculately neat and rosy-faced woman left
whatever she was doing with a frying pan on the stove and came over to
them, wiping her hands on her apron, her face wreathed in smiles.

"Go long with you, Andy Rawlinson," she cried as the youth lingered
rather awkwardly in the doorway. "There's no need for you to tell me who
these folks are, for I already know them for the new master and his lady
and the young ladies, bless their pretty sweet faces. Come right in, all
of you, and Lizzie here," turning to a wholesome-looking, mouse-haired
girl who had come in from the other room, "Lizzie will take you to see
the rooms and you can have your pick. But don't be long," she cautioned,
as they started to follow Lizzie and she turned back to her frying pan
on the stove, "for supper is all ready and you must be nearly famished."

If the girls had been impressed by the quaintness of