ll him." Kate's voice was
curt, incisive, her tone final. "He can't use a dog on these
Rambouillets--they're high-strung, nervous, different from the merinos.
Anyway, I won't have it." She swung about to indicate that the
conversation was ended.

"That's all Greek to me. Do you understand it, Hugh?" Miss Rathburn's
lofty drawl, her faintly patronizing manner, all indicated amusement.

"I don't know much about sheep," he admitted.

"Do you know--" to Kate, with all her social manner--"you are
deliciously unique?"

Kate, who detected the sneer, but had no social manner to meet it, asked
brusquely:

"In what way?"

"You're so--" she hesitated for a word and seemed to search her
vocabulary for the right one--"so strong-minded."

Kate's eyes were sparkling.

"If by that you mean intelligent, I thank you for the compliment, and
I'm sorry that I can't--" She checked herself, but the inference was
clear that she intended to add--"return it."

Miss Rathburn's fair skin became a deeper pink than even a pink-lined
parasol warranted, while Kate addressed herself to Disston exclusively.

Disston had listened in dismay. Whatever was the matter? In truth, it
must be, he told himself, that women were natural enemies. He never had
seen this feline streak in Beth to recognize it, and he had felt
instinctively that, on Kate's side, from the first glance she had not
liked her visitor.

To Beth Rathburn, it was ridiculous that Disston should take seriously
this girl who, at the moment, was considerably less presentable than any
one of their own servants--that he should treat her with all the
deference he showed to any woman of his acquaintance, as if she were of
his own class exactly! And a worse offense was his obviously keen
interest in her. It was a new sensation for the southern girl to be
ignored, or at least omitted from the conversation, and each second her
resentment grew, though the underlying cause was that she felt herself
overshadowed by Kate's stronger personality.

To remind Disston of his remissness she walked over to a pen where
Bowers, astride a powerful buck, saw in hand, was having his own
troubles. She returned almost immediately, shuddering prettily:

"He's sawing that sheep's horn off! Doesn't it hurt it?"

"Not nearly so much as letting it grow to put its eye out."

"I presume you do that, too?" The girl's eyes and tone were mocking.

"Oh, yes, I do everything that's necessary." There was something