eway, but was stopped by the
adobe wall, above whose shelter the stunted treetops--through years of
exposure--slanted as if trimmed by gigantic shears. At first, looking
down the venerable alley of fantastic, knotted shapes, she saw no trace
of Susy. But half way down the gleam of a white skirt against a thicket
of dark olives showed her the young girl sitting on a bench in a
neglected arbor. In the midst of this formal and faded pageantry she
looked charmingly fresh, youthful, and pretty; and yet the unfortunate
woman thought that her attitude and expression at that moment suggested
more than her fifteen years of girlhood. Her golden hair still hung
unfettered over her straight, boy-like back and shoulders; her short
skirt still showed her childish feet and ankles; yet there seemed to be
some undefined maturity or a vague womanliness about her that stung Mrs.
Peyton's heart. The child was growing away from her, too!

"Susy!"

The young girl raised her head quickly; her deep violet eyes seemed also
to leap with a sudden suspicion, and with a half-mechanical, secretive
movement, that might have been only a schoolgirl's instinct, her right
hand had slipped a paper on which she was scribbling between the leaves
of her book. Yet the next moment, even while looking interrogatively
at her mother, she withdrew the paper quietly, tore it up into small
pieces, and threw them on the ground.

But Mrs. Peyton was too preoccupied with her news to notice the
circumstance, and too nervous in her haste to be tactful. "Susy, your
father has invited that boy, Clarence Brant,--you know that creature
we picked up and assisted on the plains, when you were a mere baby,--to
come down here and make us a visit."

Her heart seemed to stop beating as she gazed breathlessly at the girl.
But Susy's face, unchanged except for the alert, questioning eyes,
remained fixed for a moment; then a childish smile of wonder opened her
small red mouth, expanded it slightly as she said simply:--

"Lor, mar! He hasn't, really!"

Inexpressibly, yet unreasonably reassured, Mrs. Peyton hurriedly
recounted her husband's story of Clarence's fortune, and was even
joyfully surprised into some fairness of statement.

"But you don't remember him much, do you, dear? It was so long ago,
and--you are quite a young lady now," she added eagerly.

The open mouth was still fixed; the wondering smile would have been
idiotic in any face less dimpled, rosy, and piquant th