about her at the cheap, meager furniture, the small mirror
that distorted her face, the bare outlook from the window.

"For life!" she repeated to herself. "For life!"

CHAPTER III

The Prince

Miss Upton's accounts were still in a muddle when she reached Keefe. Try
as she might her unruly thoughts would wander back to the golden hair
and dark, wistful eyes of that forlorn girl.

"I was such a fool to lose her!" she kept saying to herself. "Such a
fool."

Arrived at her station she left the car, encumbered by her bulging bag
and the umbrella which had performed a nobler deed to-day than keeping
off the rain.

"I don't know, though," soliloquized Miss Mehitable. "If I hadn't had my
umbrella I couldn't have stopped him and he'd have sat with her and I
shouldn't be havin' a span-tod now."

From the car in front of her she saw descend a young man with a bag. He
was long-legged, lean and broad-shouldered, and Miss Upton, who had
known him all his life, estimated him temperately as a mixture of
Adonis, Apollo, and Hercules. He caught sight of his friend now and a
merry look came into his eyes. Miss Mehitable's mental perturbation and
physical weariness had given her plump face a troubled cast, accented by
the fact that her hat was slightly askew. The young man hurried forward
and was in time to ease his portly friend down the last step of her car.

"Howdy, Miss Mehit?" he said. "You look as if the great city hadn't
treated you well."

"Ben Barry, was you on this train?" she asked dismally.

"I was. My word, you're careful of your complexion! An umbrella with
such a sky as this!"

"You don't know what that umbrella has meant to me to-day," returned
Miss Upton with no abatement of the portentous in her tone. "Let me have
my bag, Ben. The top don't shut very good and you might drop something
out."

"You must let me take you home," he said. "You don't look fit to walk.
You have certainly had a big day. Anything left in the shops? The Upton
Emporium must be going to surprise the natives."

As he talked, the young man led his friend along the platform to where a
handsome motor waited among the dusty line of vehicles. "Gee, I'm off
for a vacation and I'm beginning to appreciate Keefe, Miss Upton. The
air is great out here."

"That's nice for your mother," observed Miss Mehitable wearily.

They both greeted the chauffeur, who wore a plain livery. Miss Upton
sank back among the cushions. "It's awful good o