ribs genially backing his host into his own sitting-room. "I'm
up, too, and am here to see Nellie. She's here, eh--of course?" he
added, darting a quick look at Burnham.

But Mr. Burnham was one of those large, liberal Western husbands who
classified his household under the general title of "woman folk," for
the integers of which he was not responsible. He hesitated, and then
propounded over the balusters to the upper story the direct query--"You
don't happen to have Nellie Wynn up there, do ye?"

There was an interval of inquiry proceeding from half a dozen reluctant
throats, more or less cottony and muffled, in those various degrees of
grievance and mental distress which indicate too early roused young
womanhood. The eventual reply seemed to be affirmative, albeit
accompanied with a suppressed giggle, as if the young lady had just
been discovered as an answer to an amusing conundrum.

"All right," said Wynn, with an apparent accession of boisterous
geniality. "Tell her I must see her, and I've only got a few minutes to
spare. Tell her to slip on anything and come down; there's no one here
but myself, and I've shut the front door on Brother Burnham. Ha, ha!"
and suiting the action to the word, he actually bundled the admiring
Brother Burnham out on his own doorstep. There was a light pattering on
the staircase, and Nellie Wynn, pink with sleep, very tall, very slim,
hastily draped in a white counterpane with a blue border and a general
classic suggestion, slipped into the parlor. At the same moment the
father shut the door behind her, placed one hand on the knob, and with
the other seized her wrist.

"Where were you yesterday?" he asked.

Nellie looked at him, shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Here."

"You were in the Carquinez Woods with Low Dorman; you went there in
disguise; you've met him there before. He is your clandestine lover;
you have taken pledges of affection from him; you have"--

"Stop!" she said.

He stopped.

"Did he tell you this?" she asked, with an expression of disdain.

"No; I overheard it. Dunn and Brace were at the house waiting for you.
When the coach did not bring you, I went to the office to inquire. As I
left our door I thought I saw somebody listening at the parlor windows.
It was only a drunken Mexican muleteer leaning against the house; but
if _he_ heard nothing, _I_ did. Nellie, I heard Brace tell Dunn that he
had tracked you in your disguise to the woods--do you hear? that wh