ing away some
books that were lying about on chairs and tables, stopping midway to
open their pages, becoming interested, and quite finishing one chapter,
with the book held close against the window to catch the fading light of
day. The feminine reader will gather from this that Mrs. Rylands, though
charming, was not facile in domestic duties. She had just glanced at the
clock, and lit the candle to again set herself to work, and thus bridge
over the two hours more of waiting, when there came a tap at the door.
She opened it to Jane.

"There's an entire stranger downstairs, ez hez got a lame hoss and wants
to borry a fresh one."

"We have none, you know," said Mrs. Rylands, a little impatiently.

"Thet's what I told him. Then he wanted to know ef he could lie by here
till he could get one or fix up his own hoss."

"As you like; you know if you can manage it," said Mrs. Rylands, a
little uneasily. "When Mr. Rylands comes you can arrange it between you.
Where is he now?"

"In the kitchen."

"The kitchen!" echoed Mrs. Rylands.

"Yes, ma'am, I showed him into the parlor, but he kinder shivered his
shoulders, and reckoned ez how he'd go inter the kitchen. Ye see, ma'am,
he was all wet, and his shiny big boots was sloppy. But he ain't one o'
the stuck-up kind, and he's willin' to make hisself cowf'ble before the
kitchen stove."

"Well, then, he don't want ME," said Mrs. Rylands, with a relieved
voice.

"Yes'm," said Jane, apparently equally relieved. "Only, I thought I'd
just tell you."

A few minutes later, in crossing the upper hall, Mrs. Rylands heard
Jane's voice from the kitchen raised in rustic laughter. Had she been
satirically inclined, she might have understood Jane's willingness to
relieve her mistress of the duty of entertaining the stranger; had
she been philosophical, she might have considered the girl's dreary,
monotonous life at the rancho, and made allowance for her joy at this
rare interruption of it. But I fear that Mrs. Rylands was neither
satirical nor philosophical, and presently, when Jane reentered, with
color in her alkaline face, and light in her huckleberry eyes, and said
she was going over to the cattle-sheds in the "far pasture," to see
if the hired man didn't know of some horse that could be got for the
stranger, Mrs. Rylands felt a little bitterness in the thought that the
girl would have scarcely volunteered to go all that distance in the rain
for HER. Yet, in a few moments she for