le table turning over Eastern photographs with a few young
girls. She, too, wore black in deference to the Colonel's taste, which
was somber, and the garment she had laughed at as a compromise left
uncovered a narrow strip of ivory shoulder and enhanced the polished
whiteness of her neck. A slender string of pearls gleamed softly on
the satiny skin, but Maud Barrington wore no other adornment, and did
not need it. She had inherited the Courthorne comeliness, and the
Barringtons she sprang from on her father's side had always borne the
stamp of distinction.

A young girl sat at the piano singing in a thin reedy voice, while an
English lad waited with the ill-concealed jealousy of a too officious
companion to turn over the music by her side. Other men, mostly young,
with weather-bronzed faces, picturesque in embroidered deerskin or
velvet lounge jackets, were scattered about the room, and all were
waiting for the eight o'clock dinner, which replaced the usual prairie
supper at Silverdale. They were growers of wheat who combined a good
deal of amusement with a little, not very profitable, farming, and most
of them possessed a large share of insular English pride and a somewhat
depleted exchequer.

Presently Dane crossed over, and sat down by Colonel Barrington. "You
are silent, sir, and not looking very well to-night," he said.

Barrington nodded gravely, for he had a respect for the one man who
occasionally spoke plain truth to him. "The fact is, I am growing
old," he said, and then added, with what was only an apparent lack of
connection, "Wheat is down three cents, and money tighter than ever."

Dane looked thoughtful, and noticed the older man's glance in his
niece's direction, as he said, "I am afraid there are difficult times
before us."

"I have no doubt we shall weather them as we have done before," said
the Colonel. "Still, I can't help admitting that just now I feel--a
little tired--and am commencing to think we should have been better
prepared for the struggle had we worked a trifle harder during the
recent era of prosperity. I could wish there were older heads on the
shoulders of those who will come after me."

Just then Maud Barrington glanced at them, and Dane, who could not
remember having heard his leader talk in that fashion before, and could
guess his anxieties, was a little touched as he noticed his attempt at
sprightliness. As it happened, one of the lads at the piano commenced
a song o