ways of women, but being a close
observer of nature and an adept at reasoning from analogy, he assumed
that a sudden storm meant equally sudden clearing, so he held his peace
and, for once, his whistle.

Zephyr's reasoning was correct. Madame's tears dried almost as suddenly
as they had started. Zephyr had filled a cup with coffee, and he
tendered it deferentially to Madame.

"A peaceful stomach favours a placid mind," he remarked, casually;
"which is an old observation that doesn't show its age. From which I
infer that it has a solid foundation of truth."

Madame hesitatingly reached for the proffered coffee, then she thought
better of it, and, much to Zephyr's surprise, again let loose the
fountains of her tears. Zephyr glanced upward with a cocking eye, then
down the steep pass to where the broken line of rock dropped sheer into
Rainbow Gulch where lay Pandora and the Blue Goose.

"About this time look for unsettled weather," he whispered to himself.
Zephyr had dropped analogy and was reasoning from cold facts. He was
thinking of Elise.

Tears often clear the mind, as showers the air, and Madame's tears, with
Zephyr's calm, were rapidly having a salubrious effect. This time she
not only reached for the coffee on her own initiative, but, what was
more to the purpose, drank it. She even ate some of the food Zephyr
placed before her.

Zephyr noted with approval.

"Rising barometer, with freshening winds, growing brisk, clearing
weather."

Madame looked up at Zephyr's almost inaudible words.

"How?" she ventured, timidly.

"That's a fair question," Zephyr remarked, composedly. "The fact is, I
get used to talking to myself and answering a fool according to his
folly. It's hard sledding to keep up. You see, a fellow that gets into
his store clothes only once a year or so don't know where to hang his
thumbs."

Madame looked somewhat puzzled, began a stammering reply, then, dropping
her useless efforts, came to her point at once.

"It's about Elise."

Zephyr answered as directly as Madame had spoken.

"Is Elise in trouble?"

"Yes. I don't know what to do." Madame paused and looked expectantly at
Zephyr.

"Pierre wants her to marry that Morrison?"

Madame gave a sigh of relief. There was no surprise in her face.

"Pierre says she shall not go to school and learn to despise him and me.
He says she will learn to be ashamed of us before her grand friends. Do
you think she will ever be ashamed of me?" The