orse. Immediate action was necessary.

"Well, Elizabeth," said Madam Bailey in her stiffest tones, "I really do
not care to have any of your Montana friends visit you. You will have to
excuse yourself. It will lead to embarrassing entanglements. You do not in
the least realize your position in society. It is all well enough to
please your relatives, although I think you often overdo that. You could
just as well send them a present now and then, and please them more than
to go yourself. But as for any outsiders, it is impossible. I draw the
line there."

"But grandmother----"

"Don't interrupt me, Elizabeth; I have something more to say. I had word
this morning from the steamship company. They can give us our staterooms
on the Deutschland on Saturday, and I have decided to take them. I have
telegraphed, and we shall leave here to-day for New York. I have one or
two matters of business I wish to attend to in New York. We shall go to
the Waldorf for a few days, and you will have more opportunity to see New
York than you have had yet. It will not be too warm to enjoy going about a
little, I fancy; and a number of our friends are going to be at the
Waldorf, too. The Craigs sail on Saturday with us. You will have young
company on the voyage."

Elizabeth's heart sank lower than she had known it could go, and she grew
white to the lips. The observant grandmother decided that she had done
well to be so prompt. The man from Montana was by no means to be admitted.
She gave orders to that effect, unknown to Elizabeth.

The girl went slowly to her room. All at once it had dawned upon her that
she had not given her address to the man the night before, nor told him by
so much as a word what were her circumstances. An hour's meditation
brought her to the unpleasant decision that perhaps even now in this hard
spot God was only hiding her from worse trouble. Mr. George Benedict
belonged to Geraldine Loring. He had declared as much when he was in
Montana. It would not be well for her to renew the acquaintance. Her heart
told her by its great ache that she would be crushed under a friendship
that could not be lasting.

Very sadly she sat down to write a note.

"_My dear Friend_," she wrote on plain paper with no crest. It
was like her to choose that. She would not flaunt her good
fortune in his face. She was a plain Montana girl to him, and so
she would remain.

"My grandmother has been very ill, and is obliged