s to have the power of making
point take the place of weight. Yet, oddly enough, there is an
occasional air of masculine loose-jointedness about her movements, a
half-defiant sort of slouch and swagger which would probably carry
much farther in her Old World than in our easier-moving New World,
where disdain of decorum can not be regarded as quite such a novelty.

It wasn't until she was within the protecting door of Casa Grande that
I woke up to the fact of how incongruous she stood on a northwest
ranch. She struck me, then, as distinctly an urban product, as one of
those lazy and silk-lined and limousiny sort of women who could face
an upholstery endurance-test without any apparent signs of
heart-failure, but might be apt to fall down on engine-performance.
Yet I was determined to suspend all judgment, even after I could see
that she was making no particular effort to meet me half-way, though
she did acknowledge that Dinkie, in his best bib and tucker, was a
"dawling" and even proclaimed that his complexion--due, of course, to
the floor-shellac and coal-oil--reminded her very much of the
higher-colored English children. She also dutifully asked about Poppsy
and Pee-Wee, after announcing that she found the house uncomfortably
hot, and seemed surprised that Dinky-Dunk should descend to the
stabling and feeding and watering of his own horses.

She appeared rather constrained and ill-at-ease, in fact, until
Dinky-Dunk had washed up and joined us. Yet I saw, when we sat down to
our belated supper, that the fair Allie had the abundant and honest
appetite of a healthy boy. She also asked if she might smoke between
courses--which same worried the unhappy Dinky-Dunk much more than it
did me. My risibilities remained untouched until she languidly
remarked that any woman who had twins on the prairie ought to get a
V.C.

But she automatically became, I retorted, a K.C.B. This seemed to
puzzle the cool-eyed Lady Alicia.

"That means a Knight Commander of the Bath," she said with her English
literalness.

"Exactly," I agreed. And Dinky-Dunk had to come to her rescue and
explain the joke, like a court-interpreter translating Cree to the
circuit judge, so that by the time he got through it didn't seem a
joke at all and his eyes were flashing me a code-signal not to be too
hard on a tenderfoot. When, later on, Lady Alicia looked about Casa
Grande, which we'd toiled and moiled and slaved to make like the
homestead prints in the