"Pooh! Never saw much in him to take out," shrugged Tilly.

"Tilly!" gasped Cordelia.

"Tilly can't see poetry in anything that doesn't jingle like 'If you love me as I love you, no knife can cut our love in two,'" chanted Bertha.

"My dears!" remonstrated Mrs. Kennedy, feebly.

Tilly turned with swift pacification.

"Don't you worry, Mrs. Kennedy. I'm used to it. They can't trouble me any!"

It was Mr. Hartley who broke the silence that followed.

"Well, Miss Cordelia," he asked laughingly, "what is the matter? You've been peering in all directions, and you look as if you hadn't found what you were hunting for. You weren't expecting to find soda fountains and candy stores on the prairie, were you?"

Cordelia smiled and shook her head.

"Of course not, Mr. Hartley! I was looking for the blue bonnets—the flowers, you know. Genevieve said they grew wild all through the prairie grass."

"And so they do—specially, early in the spring, my dear. I wish you could see them, then."

"I wish I could—Genevieve has told me so much about them. She says they're the state flower. I thought they had such a funny name; I wanted to pick one, if I could. She says they're lovely, too."

"They are, indeed, and I wish you could see them when they are at their best," rejoined Mr. Hartley; then he turned to Bertha, who had been listening with evident interest. "In the spring it's a blue ocean, Miss Bertha—I wish you could see the wind sweep across it then! And I wish you could smell it, too," he added with a laugh. "I reckon you wouldn't think it much like your salty, fishy east wind," he finished, twinkling.

"Oh, but we just love that salty, fishy east wind, every time we go near the shore," retorted a chorus of loyal Eastern voices; and Mr. Hartley laughed again.

In the ranch wagon behind them, Genevieve was doing the honors of the prairie right royally. Here, there, and everywhere she was pointing out something of interest. In the ranch wagon, too, the marvelous hush and charm of limitless distance had wrought its own spell; and all had fallen silent.

It was Alma Lane who broke the pause.

"What are all those deep, narrow paths, such a lot of them, running parallel to the wheel tracks?" she asked curiously. "I've been watching them ever since we left Bolo. They are on both sides, too."

"They're made by the cattle," answered Genevieve; "such a lot of them, you know, traveling single file on their way to Bolo. Bolo is a 'cow town'—that is, they ship cattle to market from there."

"Poor things," sighed Elsie, sympathetically. "I saw some yesterday from the train. I thought then I never wanted to eat another piece of beefsteak—and I adore beefsteak, too."

Genevieve sobered a little.

"I know it; I know just how you feel. I hate that part—but it's business, I suppose. I reckon I hate business, anyhow—but I love the ranch! I can't get used to the branding, either."

"What's that?" asked Elsie.

Genevieve shook her head. A look of pain crossed her face.

"Don't ask me, Elsie, please. You'll find out soon enough. Branding is business, too, I suppose—but it's horrid. Mammy Lindy says that the first time I saw our brand on a calf and realized what it meant and how it got there, I cried for hours—for days, in fact, much of the time."

"Why, Genevieve," cried Elsie, wonderingly. "How dreadful! What is a brand? I thought 'brand' meant the kind of coffee or tea one drank."

Alma frowned and threw a quick look into Genevieve's face.

"What a funny little town Bolo is!" she exclaimed, with a swift change of subject. "I declare, it looked 'most as sleepy as Sunbridge."

"Sleepy!" laughed Genevieve, her face clearing, much to Alma's satisfaction. "You should see Bolo when it's really awake—say when some association of cattlemen meet there. And there's going to be one next month, I think. There's no end of fun and frolic and horse-racing then, with everybody there, from the cowboys and cattle-kings to the trappers and Indians. You wouldn't think there was anything sleepy about Bolo then, I reckon," nodded Genevieve, gayly.

"Genevieve, quick—look!—off there," cried Elsie, excitedly.

"Some more of Fred's 'boats'—three of them this time," laughed Alma, her eyes on the three white-topped wagons glistening in the sunlight.

"Boats?" questioned Genevieve.

"That's what little Fred Wilson told us we were going to ride in," explained Alma. "He said they had prairie schooners here, and schooners were boats, of course."

Genevieve laughed merrily.

"I wish Fred could see these 'boats,'" she said.

"Well, I don't know; I feel as if they were boats," declared Alma, stoutly. "I'm sure I don't think anybody on the ocean could be any more glad to see a sail than I should be to see one of these, if I were a lonely traveler on this sea of grass!"

"But where are they going?" questioned Elsie.

"I don't know—nor do they, probably," rejoined Genevieve, with a quizzical smile. "They're presumably emigrants hunting up cheap land for a new home. There used to be lots of them, Father says; but there aren't so many now. See—they're going to cross our way just ahead of us. We'll get a splendid view of them."

Nearer and nearer came the curiously clumsy, yet curiously airy-looking wagons. Sallow-faced women looked out mournfully, and tow-headed children peeped from every vantage point. Brawny, but weary-looking men stalked beside their teams.

"Look at the men—walking!" cried Elsie.

"They're 'bull-whackers,'" nodded Genevieve, mischievously.

"Bull-whackers!"

"Yes, because their teams happen to be oxen; if they were mules, now, they'd be 'mule-skinners.'"

"Is that what you are, then?" asked Elsie, with a demureness that rivaled Tilly's best efforts. "You're driving mules, you know."

"Well, you better not call me that," laughed Genevieve. "See, they've stopped to speak to Father. I reckon we'll have to stop, too."

"I 'reckon' we shall," mimicked Elsie, good-naturedly.

"They've got all their household goods and gods in those wagons," said Genevieve, musingly. "I can see a tin coffeepot hanging straight over one woman's head."

"I shouldn't think they had anything but children," laughed Alma, as from every wagon there tumbled a scrambling, squirming mass of barefoot legs, thin brown arms, and touseled hair above wide, questioning eyes.

Long minutes later, from the carriage, Cordelia Wilson followed with dreamy eyes the slow-receding wagons, now again upon their way.

"I feel just like 'ships that pass in the night,'" she murmured.

"I don't. I feel just like supper," whispered Tilly. Then she laughed at the frightened look Cordelia flung at Mr. Hartley.

On and on through the shimmering heat, under the cloudless sky, trailed the carriage and the ranch wagons. Mr. Tim had long ago galloped out of sight.

It was when they were within five miles of the ranch that Cordelia, looking far ahead, saw against the horizon a rapidly growing black speck. For some time she watched it in silence; then, suddenly, she became aware that, large as was the speck now, it had broken into other specks—bobbing, shifting specks that promptly became not specks at all, but men on horseback.

Spasmodically she clutched Mr. Hartley's arm.

"What—are—those?" she questioned, with dry lips.

Mr. Hartley gave an indifferent glance ahead.

"Cowboys, I should say," he answered.

Cordelia caught her breath. At that moment a shot rang out, then another, and another.

Mr. Hartley looked up now, sharply, a little angrily. The indifference was quite gone from his face.

It was then that Genevieve's voice came clear and strong from the wagon behind.

"It's the boys, Father—our boys!" she called. "I know it's the boys. I told them I'd promised the girls a welcome, and they're giving it to us!"

"By George! it is our boys," breathed Mr. Hartley. And the scowl on his face gave way to a broad smile.

"Is it really all—fun?" quavered Cordelia, breathlessly.

"Every bit," Mr. Hartley assured her. And then—though still breathlessly—Cordelia gave herself up to the excitement of the moment.

They were all about them soon—those lithe, supple figures, swaying lightly, or sitting superbly erect in their saddles. From the top of their broad-brimmed hats to the tips of their high-heeled cowboy boots they were a wonder and a joy to the amazed eyes of Cordelia. With stirrups so long the chains clanked musically, they galloped back and forth, shouting, laughing, and shooting wildly into the air. With their chaparejos, or leather overalls, their big revolvers, their spurs, their bright silk handkerchiefs knotted loosely around their necks over the open collar of their flannel shirts, they made a brave show, indeed. Nor was the least of the wonders about them the graceful swirls of loosely-coiled lariats hanging from the horns of their saddles.

After all, it lasted only a minute before the revolvers were thrust into the waiting holsters, and before the men, bareheaded, were making a sweeping bow from their saddles.

It was Genevieve who led the clapping.

"Oh, boys, thank you! That was fine—just fine!" she crowed. "Now I reckon Cordelia thinks she has seen a cowboy all right!"

And Cordelia did. A little white, but bravely smiling, she was sitting erect, apparently serene. And only Mr. Hartley knew that one of her hands was clutched about his arm in a grasp that actually hurt.

"They did that—all that shooting and yelling—just for a joke, then?" she asked Mr. Hartley, a little later.

"Only that. They were giving you a welcome to the Six Star Ranch."

"Then they don't act like that all the time?"

"Hardly!" laughed the man. "I reckon they wouldn't get much work done if they did."

Cordelia drew a relieved sigh. Her eyes, a little less fearful, rested on the erect figure of the nearest cowboy, just to the right of the carriage.

"I'm so glad," she murmured. "I'll tell Mrs. Miller. She thought they did, you know—yell always without just and due provocation, and shoot at sight."

The man's lips twitched; but the next moment they grew a bit stern at the corners.

"That's exactly it, Miss Cordelia—exactly the idea that some people have of the boys, and I'll grant that when they—they drink too much whiskey, they aren't exactly what you might call peaceable, desirable companions—though three-fourths of their antics then are caused by reckless high spirits rather than by real ugliness—with exceptions, of course. But when sober they are quiet, straightforward, generous-hearted good fellows, hard-working and honest; certainly my boys are."

Mr. Hartley hesitated, then went on, still gravely.

"There's just as much difference in ranches, of course, Miss Cordelia, as there is in folks; and all the ranches are changing fast, anyway, nowadays. Lots of the owners are quitting living on them at all. They've gone into the towns to live. On the Six Star the boys take their meals with the family; and in many places they don't do that, I know, even where the owner lives on the ranch. Our boys are very loyal to us, and very much interested in all that concerns us. They fairly worship Genevieve, and have, all the way up."

"I'm so glad," murmured Cordelia, again; and this time there was a look very much like admiration in the eyes that rested on Long John just ahead.

It was some time later that Mr. Hartley said, half turning around:

"Look straight ahead, a little to the right, young ladies, and you'll get a very good view of the Six Star Ranch."

"Oh, and you've got a windmill," cried Tilly. "I can see it against the sky; I know I can!"

"Yes, we've got a windmill," nodded Mr. Hartley.

"I love windmills," exulted Cordelia.

"So does Genevieve," observed Mr. Hartley, raising his eyebrows a little.

Only Cordelia noticed the odd smile he gave as he spoke, and she did not know what it meant. Later, however, she remembered it. She was too much excited now to think of anything but the fact that the Six Star Ranch was so near.

Bertha craned her neck to look ahead.

"Only think, we haven't passed a house, not a house since we left Bolo," she cried.

Mr. Hartley smiled.

"You see, Miss Bertha, Bolo, eighteen miles away, is our nearest neighbor; and you'll have to go even farther than that in any other direction to strike another neighbor."

"My stars!" gasped Bertha. "How awful lonesome it must be, Mr. Hartley."

"Anyhow, you can't be much bothered with neighbors running in to borrow two eggs and a little soda, can you?" giggled Tilly.

"No; that isn't one of the difficulties we have to deal with," smiled Mr. Hartley; but Bertha bridled visibly.

"Well, really, Tilly Mack," she exclaimed in pretended anger, "I should like to know if you mean anything special! You see," she added laughingly to Mr. Hartley, "I happen to live next to Tilly, myself!"

From both carriage and wagon, now, came a babel of eager chatter. There was so much to be seen on the one hand, so much to be explained on the other. The buildings and corrals were plainly visible by this time, and each minute they became more clearly defined.

"Do you mean that all that belongs to just one ranch?" demanded Tilly.

"Sure!" twinkled Mr. Hartley. "You see, if folks can't borrow of us, we can't borrow of them, either; so it's rather necessary that we have all the comforts of home ourselves."

"Well, I guess you've got them," laughed Tilly, looking wonderingly about her.

"I reckon we have," nodded Mr. Hartley, as he began to point out one and another of the buildings.

There was the long, low ranch house facing the wide reach of the prairie. Behind it, and connected with it by a covered way, were the dining room and the cook room. Beyond that was the long bunk house where the men slept, flanked by another building for the Mexican servants. There were stables, sheds, a storehouse and saddle-room, and a blacksmith's shop. Below the house an oblong bit of fenced ground showed a riot of color—Genevieve's flower garden. Below that was a vegetable garden. There was a large corral for the cattle, and a smaller one, high and circular, for the horses. There were three or four green trees near the house—tall, thin cottonwoods that had grown up along the slender streams of waste water from the windmill.



CHAPTER VII

THE RANCH HOUSE

"And here we are at the Six Star Ranch," cried Mr. Hartley, as he leaped from the carriage before the wide-open door of the ranch house. "Well, Mammy Lindy," he added, as the kindly, wrinkled old face of a colored woman appeared in the doorway, "I've corralled the whole bunch and brought them West with me!"

A little stiffly the girls got down from their seats—all but Genevieve. She, in the space of a breath, seemingly, had leaped to the ground and run up on to the wide gallery where the negress, with adoring eyes, awaited her.

"Laws, chil'e," Tilly, who was nearest, heard a tenderly crooning voice say, "but I am jes' pow'ful glad to see ye, honey!"

"Mammy, you old darling!" cried Genevieve, giving the rotund, gayly-clad figure a bear-like hug. "You look just as good as you used to—and my, my! just see all this new finery to welcome me," she added, holding off her beaming-faced old nurse at arms' length. "I reckon you'll think something has come, Mammy Lindy, when we all get settled," she added laughingly, as she turned to present the old woman to Mrs. Kennedy and the girls.

A little later, Tilly, in the wide, center hallway, was looking wonderingly about her.

"Well, Genevieve Hartley, I didn't think you could have room enough for us all," she declared; "but I'll give it up. I should think you might entertain the whole state of Texas in this house!"

"We try to, sometimes," laughed Genevieve. "You know we Texans pride ourselves on always having room for everybody."

"Well, I should think you did—and, only think, all on one floor, too!"

Genevieve did not answer. She was looking around her with a thoughtful little frown between her eyebrows as if she saw something she did not quite understand.

The girls were standing in the wide center hallway that ran straight through the house. On one side, through a wide archway, could be seen a large living-room with piano, bookshelves, comfortable chairs, a couch, and a good-sized table. Beyond that there was a narrow hall with two large rooms leading from it. From the other side of the center hall opened another narrow hall at right angles, from which led the six remaining rooms of the house.

"This is more fun than getting settled in the sleepers," declared Elsie Martin, as Genevieve began to fly about arranging her guests.

The boys made quick work of bringing in the trunks and bags; and then for a brief half-hour there was quiet while eight pairs of hurried hands attempted to remove part of the dust of travel and to unearth fresh blouses and clean linen from long-packed trunks.

It was a hungry, merry crowd, a little later, that trooped through the long covered way leading to the dining-room.

"Now I know why this house has got so much room in it," declared Tilly. "We could have room in the East if we banished our dining-rooms and kitchens and pantries to the neighbors like this!"

Genevieve did not answer. They had reached the long narrow room with the big table running lengthwise of it. Only one end of the table was set with places for eight.

"Why, where are the boys?" questioned Genevieve.

Mammy Lindy shook her head.

"Dey ain't here, chil'e."

"But, Mammy, you are mistaken. They are here. They came home with us."

"Yas'm, dey done come home, sure 'nuf, but dey ain't eatin' now, honey."

"Why not?"

Again the old woman shook her head. She did not answer. She turned troubled eyes first on the two young Mexican maids by the doorway, then on Mr. Hartley.

"Father, do you know what this means?" demanded Genevieve.

"No, dearie, I must say I don't," frowned Mr. Hartley.

"Then I shall find out," avowed the mistress of the Six Star Ranch. "Mammy Lindy, please seat my guests, and have the supper served right away. I'll find Mr. Tim."

"But, my dear," remonstrated Mrs. Kennedy, gently, "wouldn't it be better if you ate your own supper first—with your guests?"

Genevieve shook her head. Her face flushed painfully.

"I know, Aunt Julia, of course, what you mean. You don't think it's civil in me to run off like this. But it's the boys—something is the matter. They always eat with us. Why, they may be thinking we don't want them, Aunt Julia. Please, please excuse me, everybody," she entreated, as she ran from the room.

Halfway to the bunk house Genevieve met the ranch foreman.

"Why, Mr. Tim, supper is ready. Didn't you know?" she called, hurrying toward him. "Where are the boys?"

An odd expression crossed the man's kindly, weather-beaten face.

"Oh, they're 'round—in spots."

"Why don't they come to supper?"

Mr. Tim's eyebrows went up.

"Well, as near as I can make out, that's part of the welcome they're giving you."

"Welcome!—to stay away from supper!"

Mr. Tim laughed.

"I reckon maybe I'll have to explain," he replied. "Long John told me they'd got it all fixed up that, after your fine doings back East, you wouldn't take to things on the ranch very well. So for two days the whole bunch has been slicking things up, including themselves. They hunted up every stiff hat and b'iled shirt in this part of Texas, I reckon, for that splurge at Bolo; and Mammy Lindy says they've been pestering the life out of her, slicking up the house."

Genevieve drew in her breath with a little cry.

"There! That's what was the matter with the rooms," she ejaculated. "Nothing looked natural—but some things weren't exactly 'slicked up,' Mr. Tim. I couldn't turn around without finding a book at my elbow. There's scarcely one left on the shelves!"

"Maybe I can explain that," returned the man, with a twinkle in his eyes. "Reddy said the East was mighty strong on books and culturing, so I s'pose he thought he'd have 'em 'round handy. It's lucky your father had all them books come out while you was studying, or else I reckon the boys would have hit the trail for the nearest book-store and roped every book in sight."

Genevieve laughed appreciatively.

"But, the supper?" she frowned again.

"Oh, that's part of the outfit—and Reddy said it was 'dinner,' too. He said that he was raised back East, and that he knew; and that 'twas more seemly that you ate it without their company."

"Humph! Well, it isn't, and I sha'n't," settled Genevieve, emphatically. "Where is Reddy? Go in to supper," she laughed, "and I'll round up the boys—I mean, I'll find them," she corrected demurely. "Miss Jane doesn't like me to say 'round up,' Mr. Tim."

Mr. Tim smiled, but his eyes grew tender—almost anxious.

"I reckon they haven't spoiled you back East, after all, little girl. You're the same true blue, like you was, before."

Genevieve laughed and colored a little.

"Of course I am," she declared. "Now I'm going for the boys."

Mr. Tim laid a detaining hand on her arm.

"Not to-night; it's late, and it would make no end of fuss all around. But I'll tell them. They'll be on hand for breakfast, all right. Now go back to your own supper, yourself."

"All right," agreed Genevieve, reluctantly. "But—to-morrow, remember!"

"I ain't forgetting—to-morrow," nodded the man.

In the dining-room Genevieve was greeted with a merry clamor, under cover of which she said hurriedly to her father:

"It's all right. They'll come to-morrow."

"I guess you won't find we've left you much to eat," gurgled Elsie Martin, her mouth full of fried chicken.

"Oh, yes, I shall—in Texas," retorted Genevieve.

"But I'm so ashamed," apologized Cordelia. "I don't think we ought to eat so much."

"I do," disagreed Tilly, "when everything is so perfectly lovely as this is. They are just the nicest things! And just guess how many hot biscuits I've eaten with this delicious plum sauce! Mr. Hartley says they're wild—the plums, I mean, not the biscuits."

"And it's all such a surprise, too," interposed Alma Lane; "milk, and butter, and all."

Genevieve stared frankly.

"Surprise!—milk and butter!" she exclaimed. "Didn't you suppose we had milk and butter?"

Alma blushed.

"Why, Genevieve, I—I didn't mean anything, you know, truly I didn't," she stammered. "It's only that—that ranches don't usually have them, you know."

"Don't usually have them!" frowned Genevieve. "Alma Lane, what are you talking about?"

"Why, we read it, you know, in a book," explained Cordelia, hastily, coming to the rescue. "They said in spite of there being so many cows all around everywhere, there wasn't any butter or milk, and that the cowboys wouldn't like to be asked to milk, you know."

"You read it? Where?" Genevieve's forehead still wore its frown.

Mr. Hartley gave a chuckling laugh.

"I reckon Genevieve doesn't know much about such ranches," he observed. "As I was telling you, Miss Cordelia, coming out this afternoon, there's just as much difference in ranches as there is in folks; and ours happens to be the kind where we like all the comforts of home pretty well. To be sure, I wouldn't just like to ask Reddy or Long John to milk, maybe," he added, with a whimsical smile; "but I don't have to, you see. I've got Carlos for just such work. He looks after the vegetable garden, too, and Genevieve's flowers. By the way, dearie,"—he turned to his daughter—"Tim says Carlos has been putting in his prettiest work on your garden this summer. Be sure you don't forget to notice it."

"As if I could help noticing it," returned Genevieve. She was about to say more when there came an earnest question from Cordelia.

"Mr. Hartley, please, what did you call those two men?"

"What men?"

"The ones you—you wouldn't wish to ask to milk."

"Oh, the boys? I don't remember—I reckon 'twas Reddy and Long John that I mentioned, maybe."

"Yes, sir; that's the one I mean—the John one. What is his other name, please?"

"His surname? Why, really, Miss Cordelia, I reckon I've forgotten what it is. The boys all go by their first names, mostly, else by a nickname. Why? Found a long-lost friend?"

"Oh, no, sir. Well, I mean—that is—he may be lost, but he isn't mine," stammered Cordelia, who was always very literal.

"Then don't blush so, Cordy," bantered Tilly, wickedly, "else we shall think he is yours."

Cordelia blushed a still deeper pink, but she said nothing; and in the confusion of leaving the dining-room she managed to place herself as far from Tilly as possible. On the back gallery she saw the ranch foreman. As the others went chattering through the hall to the gallery beyond, she lingered timidly.

"Mr. Nolan, would—would you please tell me Mr.—Mr. John's other name?"

"John? Oh, you mean 'Long John,' Miss?"

"Yes; but—'John' what?"

Tim Nolan frowned.

"Why, let me see,"—he bit his lip in thought—"'Pierce'—no, 'Proctor.' Yes, that's it—'John Proctor.'"

A look of mingled disappointment and relief crossed Cordelia's face.

"Thank you, Mr. Nolan, very much," she faltered, as she hurried after her companions.

"I don't know whether I'm glad or sorry," she was thinking. "Of course 'twould have been nice if he'd been John Sanborn, only I'm afraid Hermit Joe wouldn't like a cowboy for a son, specially as there wouldn't be anything for him to do in Sunbridge at his trade."

Mrs. Kennedy announced soon after supper that she should take matters in hand very sternly that night and insist upon an early bedtime hour.

"It has been a long, hot, fatiguing day," she said, "but you are all so excited you'd sit up half the night asking questions and telling stories; so I shall take advantage of my position as chaperon, and send you to bed very soon."

"O dear!" sighed Tilly. "If only it would come morning quick! Just think, we've got to wait a whole night before we can do any of the things we're dying to do!"

"Never mind; there are lots of days coming," laughed Mr. Hartley. "What a fine family of young folks I have, to be sure," he gloried, looking around him contentedly.

They were all about him on the front gallery, in hammocks and chairs, or sitting on the steps; and a very attractive group they made, indeed.

"I think it would help the waiting if Genevieve would go in and sing to us," suggested Bertha, after a moment's silence. "It will be so heavenly to sit out here and listen to it!"

"Oh, sing that lovely Mexican 'Swallow Song,'" coaxed Elsie. "'La Gol—' —Gol-something, anyhow."

"Don't swear, Elsie," reproved Tilly, with becoming dignity.

"'La Golondrina'?" laughed Genevieve.

"Yes, it's a dear," sighed Elsie.

"I'd rather have that Creole Love Song that you say Mammy Lindy taught you," breathed Cordelia. "That would be perfect for such a scene as this."

"Pooh! I'd rather have one of those tinkly little tunes where you can hear the banjos and the tambourines," averred Tilly.

"Indeed! At this rate I don't see how I'm going to sing at all," laughed Genevieve, "with so many conflicting wishes. Anything different anybody wants?"

"Yes," declared Mr. Hartley, promptly. "I want them all."

"Of course!" cried half a dozen voices.

"All right!" rejoined Genevieve, laughingly, springing to her feet.

And so while everybody watched the stars in the far-reaching sky, Genevieve, in the living room, played and sang till the back gallery and the long covered way at the rear of the house were full of the moving shadows of soft-stepping Mexican servants and cowboys. And everywhere there was the hush of perfect content while from the living room there floated out the clear, sweet tones, the weird, dreamy melodies, and the tinkle of the tambourines.

One by one, an hour later, the lighted windows in the long, low ranch house became dark. The last to change was the one behind which sat Cordelia Wilson in the room she shared with Tilly.

"Cordelia, why don't you put out that light and go to bed?" demanded Tilly at last, drowsily. "Morning will never come at this rate!"

"Yes, Tilly, I'm going to bed in just a minute," promised Cordelia, as carefully she wrote in the space opposite Mrs. Miller's name on her list of "things to do":

"Cowboys are good, kind gentlemen; but they are noisy, and some rough-looking."

Five minutes later, Cordelia, from her little bed on one side of the room called a soft "good night" across to Tilly. But Tilly was already asleep.



CHAPTER VIII

THE MISTRESS OF THE SIX STAR RANCH

Breakfast was an early matter at the Six Star Ranch. It came almost with the sunrise, in fact. Genevieve had assured her guests, on the night of their arrival, however, that their breakfast might be hours later—that it might, indeed, be at any hour they pleased. But on this first morning at the ranch, there was not one guest that did not promptly respond to the breakfast-bell except Mrs. Kennedy. The stir of life out of doors had proved an effectual rising-bell for all; and it was anything but a sleepy-looking crowd of young people that tripped into the dining-room to find the boys already waiting for them—a little quiet and shy, to be sure, but very red and shiny-looking as to face and hands, speaking loudly of a vigorous use of soap and water.

Before the meal was half over, Mrs. Kennedy came in, only to meet a chorus of remonstrances that she should have disturbed herself so early.

Genevieve, however, assumed a look of mock severity.

"Aunt Julia," she began reprovingly in so perfect an imitation of Miss Jane Chick's severest manner that Mrs. Kennedy's lips twitched; "didn't you hear the rising-bell, my dear? How often must I ask you not to be late to your meals?"

For one brief moment there was a dazed hush about the table; then, at sight of Cordelia's horrified face, Genevieve lost her self-control and giggled.

"Oh, but that was such a good chance," she chuckled. "Please, Aunt Julia, I just couldn't help it. I had to!"

"I don't doubt it," smiled back Mrs. Kennedy; and at the meaning emphasis in her voice there was a general laugh.

"Well, what shall we do first?" demanded Tilly, when breakfast was over.

Genevieve put her finger to her lips.

"I wonder, now. Oh, I know! Let's go out and see if they've driven in the saddle band yet; then we'll watch the boys rope them and start to work."

"What's a saddle band?—sounds like a girth," frowned Tilly.

"Humph! I reckon it isn't one, all the same," laughed Genevieve. "It's the horses the boys ride. Each one has his own string, you know."

"No, I don't know," retorted Tilly, aggrievedly. "And you needn't use all those funny words—'string' and 'saddle band' and 'rope them'—without explaining them, either, Genevieve Hartley. You've been talking like that ever since we came. Just as if we knew what all that meant!"

Genevieve laughed again.

"No, you don't, of course," she admitted, "any more than I understood some of your terms back East. But come; let's go out and watch the boys. One of the sheds has a lovely low, flat roof, and we can see right over into the horse corral from there. It's easy; there's a ladder. Come on!"

"Why, what a lot of horses!" cried Tilly, a moment later, as they stepped out of doors. "Do they ride all those?"

"Not this morning," laughed Genevieve. "You see, each man has his own string of horses, and he picks out some one of the bunch, and lets the rest go. That's Reddy, now, driving them into the corral. The other boys will be here pretty quick now, and the fun will begin. You'll see!"

The horse corral was high and circular, and there was a fine view of it from the shed roof. A snubbing post was in the middle of the corral, and a wing was built out at one side from the entrance gate, so that the horses could be driven in more easily; yet Reddy quite had his hands full as it was. At last they were all in, and a merry time they were having of it, racing in a circle about the enclosure, heads up, and tails and manes flying.

"Regular merry-go-round, isn't it?" giggled Tilly. But Cordelia clutched Genevieve's arm.

"Genevieve, look—they've got ropes! Genevieve, what are they going to do?" she gasped, her eyes on the boys who were running from all directions now, toward the corral. "Why, Genevieve, they're going in there, with all those horses!"

"I reckon they are," rejoined the mistress of the Six Star Ranch. "Now watch, and you'll see. There!—see there?—in the middle by that post! Each man will pick out one of his own horses and rope him; then he'll lead him out and saddle him, and the deed's done."

"I guess that's easier to say than to do," observed Bertha, dryly. "I notice there aren't any of those horses just hanging 'round waiting to be caught!"

"No, there aren't, to-day," laughed Genevieve; "though some of the horses will do just that, at times—specially Long John's. They're pretty lively now, however, and it does take some skill to make a nice job of it when they're jamming and jostling like that. But the boys are equal to it. We've got some splendid ropers!" This time there was a note of very evident pride in the voice of the mistress of the Six Star Ranch.

It was a brief but exciting time that followed, filled, as it was, with the shouts of the boys—the jeers at some failure, the cheers at some success—the thud of the horses' hoofs, the swirl of the skillfully flung ropes. It was almost as exciting when the boys, their horses once caught, led out, and saddled, rode off for their morning's work. To Cordelia, especially, it was an experience never to be forgotten.

"Going to turn cowboy, Miss Cordelia?" asked Mr. Hartley, with a smile, as he met the girl coming into the house a little later. Mr. Hartley, in his broad-brimmed hat, and his gray tweed trousers tucked into his high boots, looked the picture of the prosperous ranchman at home.

Cordelia showed a distinctly shocked face.

"Oh, no, sir!" she cried.

"Don't think you could learn to swing the rope—eh?" he teased.

"Mercy, no!"

A half-proud, wholly-gratified smile crossed the man's face.

"It isn't as easy as it looks to be," he said. "Once in a while we get a tenderfoot out here, though, who thinks he's going to learn it all in a minute—or, rather, do it without any learning. But to be a good roper, one has to give it long, hard practice. The best of 'em begin young. Reddy, the crack roper in my outfit, tells me he began with his mother's clothes-line at the age of four years, with his rocking-horse for a victim. It seems there was a picture in one of his books of a cowboy roping a pony, and—"

Mr. Hartley stopped, as if listening. From the rear of the house had sounded the creak of the windmill crank. The man turned, entered the hall, and crossed to the window. Then he shook his head with a smile.

"I'm afraid Genevieve is up to her old tricks," he said. "She's stopping the windmill so she can climb to the top of the tower, I reckon."

"Genevieve!—at the top of that tower!" exclaimed Cordelia.

Mr. Hartley's lips twitched.

"Yes. That used to be a daily stunt of hers, and—I let her," added the man, a little doggedly. "It made her well and strong, anyhow, and helped to develop her muscle. You see, we—we don't have gymnasiums on the ranch," he concluded whimsically, as they stepped together out on to the back gallery.

A babel of gleeful shouts and laughter greeted their ears. A moment later Mr. Hartley and Cordelia came in sight of the windmill. At its base four chattering, shrieking girls were laughing and clapping their hands. Above their heads, Genevieve, in a dark blue gymnasium suit, was swinging herself gracefully from cross-piece to cross-piece in the tower.

"You see," smiled Mr. Hartley; but he was interrupted by a shocked, frightened voice behind him.

"Genevieve, my dear!" gasped Mrs. Kennedy, hurrying forward.

Genevieve did not hear, apparently. To the girls she waved a free hand, joyously. She was almost at the top.

"It's fine—mighty fine up here," she caroled. "I can see 'way, 'way over the prairie!"

"Genevieve! Genevieve Hartley, come down this instant," commanded Mrs. Kennedy. Then her voice shook, and grew piteously frightened, as she stammered: "No, no—don't come down, dear! Genevieve, how can you come down?" Mrs. Kennedy was wringing her hands now.

This time Genevieve heard.

"Why, Aunt Julia, what is it? What is the matter?" The girl's voice expressed only concerned surprise.

"What is the matter?" echoed Mrs. Kennedy, faintly. "Genevieve, how can you come down?"

"Come down? Why, that's easy! But I don't want to come down."

Mrs. Kennedy's lips grew stern.

"Genevieve," she said, with an obvious effort to speak quietly; "if you can come down, I desire you to do so at once."

Genevieve came down. Her eyes flashed a little, and her cheeks were redder than usual. She did not once glance toward the girls, clustered in a silent, frightened little group. She did not appear to notice even her father, standing by. She went straight to Mrs. Kennedy.

"I've come down, Aunt Julia."

Mrs. Kennedy had been seriously disturbed, and genuinely frightened. To her, Genevieve's climb to the top of the windmill tower was very dangerous, as well as very unladylike. Yet it was the fright, even more than the displeasure that made her voice sound so cold now in her effort to steady it.

"Thank you, Genevieve. Please see that there is no occasion for you to come down again," she said meaningly. Then she turned and went into the house.

Just how it happened, Genevieve did not know, but almost at once she found herself alone with her father on the back gallery. The girls had disappeared.

Genevieve was very angry now.

"Father, it wasn't fair, to speak like that," she choked, "before the girls and you, when I hadn't done a thing—not a thing! Why, it—it was just like Miss Jane! I never knew Aunt Julia to be like that."

For a moment her father was silent. His face wore a thoughtful frown.

"I know it, dearie," he said at last. "But I don't think Mrs. Kennedy quite realized, quite understood—how you'd feel. She didn't think it just right for you to be there."

"But I was in my gym suit, Father. I skipped in and put it on purposely, while the others were doing something else; then I climbed the tower. I'd planned 'way ahead how I'd surprise them."

The man hesitated.

"I know, dearie," he nodded, after a moment; "but I reckon it was just a little too much of a surprise for Mrs. Kennedy. You know she isn't used to the West; and—do Boston young ladies climb windmill towers?"

In spite of her anger, Genevieve laughed. The mention of Boston had put her in mind of some Boston friends of Mrs. Kennedy's, whom she knew. She had a sudden vision of what Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Butterfield's faces would have been, had their stern, sixty-year-old eyes seen what Mrs. Kennedy saw.

"I reckon, too," went on Mr. Hartley, with a sigh, "that I have sort of spoiled you, letting you have your own way. And maybe Mammy Lindy and I, in our anxiety that you should be well and strong, and sit the saddle like a Texas daughter should, haven't taught you always just the dainty little lady ways—that you ought to have been taught."

"You've taught me everything—everything good and lovely," protested the girl, hotly.

He shook his head. A far-away look came into his eyes.

"I haven't, dearie—and that's why I sent you East."

Genevieve flushed.

"But I didn't want to go East, in the first place," she stormed. "I wanted to stay here with you. Besides, Aunt Julia isn't really any relation,—nor Miss Jane, either. They haven't any right to—to speak to me like that."

A dull red stole to John Hartley's cheek.

"Tut, tut, dearie," he demurred, with a shake of the head. "You mustn't forget how good they've been to you. Besides—they have got the right. I gave it to them. I told them to make you like themselves."

There was a long silence. Genevieve's eyes were moodily fixed on the floor. Her father gave her a swift glance, then went on, softly:

"I suspect, too, maybe we're both forgetting, dearie. After all, Mrs. Kennedy did it every bit through—love. She was frightened. She was so scared she just shook, dearie."

"She—was?" Genevieve's voice was amazed.

"Yes. I reckon that's more than half why she spoke so stern, and why she's in her room crying this minute—as I'll warrant she is. I saw her eyes, and I saw how her hands shook. And I saw it was all she could do to keep from falling right on your neck—because she had you back safe and sound. Maybe you didn't see that, dearie."

There was no answer.

"You see, their ways back East, and ours, aren't alike," resumed the man, after a time; "but I reckon their—love is."

Genevieve drew a long breath. Her brown eyes were not clear.

"I reckon maybe I'll go and find—Aunt Julia," she said in a low voice.

The next moment her father sat alone on the back gallery.



CHAPTER IX

REDDY AND THE BRONCHO

There was no lack of interesting things to do that first day at the ranch. There was one half-hour, to be sure, when five of the Happy Hexagons sat a little quietly on the front gallery and tried to talk as if there were no such thing as a windmill, and no such person as a girl who could climb to the top of it; but after Genevieve and Mrs. Kennedy, arm in arm, came through the front door—with eyes indeed, a little misty, but with lips cheerfully smiling—every vestige of constraint fled. Genevieve, once more in her pretty linen frock, was again the alert little hostess, and very soon they were all off to inspect the flower garden, the vegetable garden, the cow corral, the sheds, the stables, and the blacksmith's shop, not forgetting Teresa, the cook, who was making tamales in the kitchen for them, nor Pepito, Genevieve's own horse that she rode before she went East.

"And we'll have the boys pick out some horses for you, too," cried Genevieve, smoothing Pepito's sleek coat in response to his welcoming whinny of delight. "I'm sure they can find something all right for us."

Tilly's eyes brightened, so, too, did Bertha's; but Cordelia spoke hastily, her eyes bent a bit distrustfully on the spirited little horse Genevieve was petting.

"Oh, but I don't believe they'll have time to hunt up horses for us, Genevieve. Really, I don't think we ought to ask them to."

"Maybe we won't, then—for you," teased Tilly, saucily. "We'll just let them take time for ours."

It is a question, however, if that afternoon, even Tilly wanted to ride; for, according to Cordelia's notes that night in "Things to do," they saw a broncho "bursted."

It was Mr. Tim who had said at the dinner table that noon:

"If you young people happen to be on hand, say at about four o'clock, you'll see something doing. Reddy's got a horse or two he's going to put through their paces—and one of 'em's never been saddled."

Privately, to Mr. Hartley, Mrs. Kennedy objected a little.

"Are you sure, Mr. Hartley, the girls ought to witness such a sight?" she asked uneasily. "Of course I don't want to be too strict in my demands," she went on with a little twinkle in her eyes that Mr. Hartley thoroughly understood. "I realize the West isn't the East. But, will this be—all right?"

"I think it will—even in your judgment," he assured her. "It's no professional broncho-buster that they'll see to-day. I seldom hire them, anyway, as I prefer to have our own men break in the horses—specially as we're lucky enough to have three or four mighty skillful ones right in our own outfit. There'll be nothing brutal or rough to-day, Mrs. Kennedy. Only one beast is entirely wild, and he's not really vicious, Reddy says. Genevieve tells me the girls have heard a lot about broncho-busting, and that they're wild to see it. They wouldn't think they'd been to Texas, I'm afraid, if they didn't see something of the sort."

"Very well," agreed Mrs. Kennedy, with visible reluctance.

"Oh, of course," went on Mr. Hartley, his eyes twinkling, "you mustn't expect that they'll see exactly a pony parade drawing baby carriages down Beacon Street; but they will see some of the best horsemanship that the state of Texas can show. I take it you never saw a little beast whose chief aim in life was to get clear of his rider—eh, Mrs. Kennedy?"

"No, I never did," shuddered the lady; "and I'm not sure that I'd want to," she finished decisively, as she turned away.

The new horse proved to be a fiery little bay mustang, and the fight began from the first moment that the noose settled about his untamed little neck. As Tilly told of the affair in the Chronicles of the Hexagon Club, it was like this:

"We saw a broncho busted this afternoon. Reddy busted it, and he was splendid. Mercy! I shall never think anything my old Beauty does is bad again. Beauty is a snail and a saint beside this jumping, plunging, squealing creature that never by any chance was on his feet properly—except when he came down hard on all four of them at once with his back humped right up in the middle in a perfectly frightful fashion—and I suppose that wasn't 'properly.' Anyhow, I shouldn't have thought it was, if I had had to try to sit on that hump!

"But that wasn't the only thing that he did. Dear me, no! He danced, and rolled, and seesawed up and down—'pitching,' Mr. Hartley called it. And I'm sure it looked like it. First he'd try standing on his two fore feet, then he'd give them a rest, and take the other two. And sometimes he couldn't seem to make up his mind which he wanted to use, or which way he wanted to turn, and he'd change about right up in the air so he'd come down facing the other way. My, he was the most uncertain creature!

"It didn't seem to make a mite of difference where the horse was, or what he did with his feet, though. Reddy was right there every time, and all ready, too. (Yes, I know a pun is the lowest order of wit. But I don't care. I couldn't help it, anyway—it was such a ready one!) There he sat, so loose and easy, too, with his quirt (that's a whip), and it looked sometimes just as if he wasn't half trying—that he didn't need to. But I'm sure he was trying. Anyhow, I know I couldn't have stayed on that horse five minutes; and I don't believe even Genevieve could. (I said that to Mr. Tim Nolan, and he laughed so hard I thought I'd put it in here, and let somebody else laugh.)

"Of course every one of us was awfully excited, and the boys kept shouting and cheering, and yelling 'Stay with him!' and telling him not to 'go to leather'—whatever that may mean! And Reddy did stay. He stayed till the little horse got tired out; then he got off, and led the horse away, and some of the other boys went through a good deal the same sort of thing with other horses, only these had all been partly broken before, they told us. But, mercy, they were bad enough, anyhow, I thought, to have been brand-new. Reddy did another one, too, and this time he put silver half-dollars under his feet in the stirrups: And when the little beast—the horse, I mean, not Reddy—got through his antics, there the half-dollars were, still there in the same old place. How the boys did yell and cheer then!

"After that, they all just 'showed off' for us, throwing their ropes over anything and everything, and playing like a crowd of little boys on a picnic, only Mr. Hartley said they were doing some 'mighty fine roping' with it all. Their ropes are mostly about forty feet long, and it looked as if they just slung them any old way; but I know they don't, for afterward, just before we went in to supper, Reddy let me take his rope, and I tried to throw it. I aimed for a post a little way ahead of me, but I got Pedro, the Mexican cowboy, behind me, right 'in the neck,' as Mr. Tim said. Pedro grinned, and of course everybody else laughed horribly.

"And thus endeth the account of how the bronchos were busted. (P.S. I hope whoever reads the above will own up that for once Tilly Mack got some sense into her part. So there!) I forgot to say we took a nap after dinner. Everybody does here. 'Siestas' they call them, Genevieve says."

* * * * *

It was after supper that Genevieve said:

"Now let's go out on to the front gallery and watch the sunset. Supper was too late last night for us to see much of it, but to-night it will be fine—and you've no idea what a sunset really can be until you've seen it on the prairie!"

Tilly pursed her lips.

"There, Genevieve Hartley, there's another of those mysterious words of yours; and it isn't the first time I've heard it here, either."

"What word?"

"'Gallery.' What is a gallery? I'm sure I don't see what there can be about a one-story house to be called a 'gallery'!"

Genevieve laughed.

"You call them 'verandas' or 'piazzas,' back East, Tilly. We call them 'galleries' in Texas."

"Oh, is that it?" frowned Tilly. "But you never called Sunbridge piazzas that."

Genevieve shook her head.

"No; it's only when I get back here that the old names come back to me so naturally. Besides—when I was East, I very soon found out what you called them; so I called them that, too."

"Well, anyhow," retorted Tilly, saucily, "I've got my opinion of folks that will call a one-story piazza a 'gallery.' I should just like to show them what we call a 'gallery' at home—say, the top one in the Boston Theater, you know, where it runs 'way back."

Genevieve only laughed good-naturedly.

On the front gallery all settled themselves comfortably to watch the sunset. Already the sun was low in the west, a huge ball of fire just ready to drop into the sea of prairie grass.

"It doesn't seem nearly so hot here as I thought it would," observed Bertha, after a time. "Oh, it's been warm to-day, of course—part of the time awfully warm," she added hastily. "But I've been just as hot in New Hampshire."

"We think we've got a mighty fine climate," spoke up Mr. Hartley. "Now, last year, you in the East, had heaps of prostrations from the heat. Texas had just three."

"I suppose that was owing to the Northers," murmured Cordelia, interestedly. "Now, feel it!" She put up her hand. "There's a breeze, now. Is that a Norther?"

Mr. Hartley coughed suddenly. Genevieve stared.

"What do you know about Northers?" she demanded.

"Why, I—I read about them. It said you—you had them."

Genevieve broke into a merry laugh.

"I should think, by the way you put it, that they were the measles or the whooping cough! We do have them, Cordelia—in the winter, specially, but not so often in July. Besides, they don't feel much like this little breeze—as you'd soon find out, if you happened to be in one."

For a moment there was silence; then Genevieve spoke again.

"See here, where'd you find out all these things about Texas—that we didn't have butter, and did have Northers?"

Before Cordelia could answer, Tilly interposed with a chuckling laugh:

"I'll tell you, Genevieve, just where they found out," she cut in, utterly ignoring her own share of the "they." "Now, listen! How do you suppose they spent all the time you were in New Jersey? I'll tell you. They were digging up Texas every single minute; and they dug, and dug, and dug, until there wasn't a mean annual temperature, or a mean anything else that they didn't drag from its hiding-place and hold up triumphantly, and shout: 'Behold, this is Texas!'"

"Girls—you didn't!" cried Genevieve, choking with laughter.

"They did!" affirmed Tilly.

"Yes, we did—including Tilly," declared Cordelia, with unexpected spirit.

Everybody laughed this time, but it was Alma, the peacemaker, who spoke next.

"Oh, look—look at the sun!" she exclaimed. "Aren't those rose-pink clouds gorgeous?"

"My, wouldn't they make a lovely dress?" sighed Elsie.

"Yes, and see the golden pathway the sun has made, straight down to the prairie," cried Bertha Brown.

"Oh, look, look, Mr. Hartley! Is that grass on fire?" gasped Cordelia.

Mr. Hartley shook his head.

"No—I hope not."

"But you do have prairie fires?"

"Sometimes; but not so often nowadays—though I've seen some bad ones, in my time."

There was a long silence. All eyes were turned toward the west. Above, a riot of rose and gold and purple flamed across the sky. Below, more softly, the colors seemed almost repeated in the waving, shifting, changing expanse of fairylike loveliness that the prairie had become.

"Oh, how beautiful it all is, and how I do love it," breathed Genevieve, after a time, as if to herself.

Gradually the gorgeous rose and gold and purple changed, softened, and faded quite away. The slender crescent of the moon appeared, and one by one the stars showed in the darkening sky.

"It's all so quiet, so wonderfully quiet," sighed Cordelia; then, abruptly, she cried: "Why, what's that?"

There had sounded a far-away shout, then another, nearer. On the breeze was borne the muffled tread of hundreds of hoofs. A dog began to bark lustily.

* * * * *

Later, they swept into view—a troop of cowboys, and a thronging, jostling mass of cattle.

"On the way to a round-up, probably," explained Mr. Hartley, as he rose to his feet and went to meet the foreman, who was coming toward the house.

Still later, he explained more fully.

"They've put them in our pens for the night. The boys have gone into camp a mile or so away."

Genevieve shuddered.

"I hate round-ups," she cried passionately.

"What are round-ups?" asked Bertha Brown.

"Where they brand the cattle," answered Genevieve, quickly, but in a low voice.

Cordelia, who was near her, shuddered. She seemed now to see before her eyes that seething mass of heads and horns, sweeping on and on unceasingly.

Cordelia had two dreams that night. She wondered, afterward, which was the worse. She dreamed, first, that an endless stream of cattle climbed the windmill tower and jumped clear to the edge of the prairie, where the sun went down. She dreamed, secondly, that she was very hungry, and that twenty feet away stood a table laden with hot biscuits and fried chicken; but that the only way she could obtain any food was to "rope it" with Reddy's lariat. At the time of waking up she had not obtained so much as one biscuit or a chicken wing.



CHAPTER X

CORDELIA GOES TO CHURCH

"We're going to have church to-morrow," Genevieve had announced on the first Saturday night at the ranch. "A minister is coming from Bolo, and he holds the service out of doors. Everybody on the place comes, and we sing, and it's lovely!"

As it happened, Cordelia had not been present when Genevieve made this announcement. It was left for Tilly, therefore, to tell her.

"Oh, Cordelia, I forgot. We're going to have church to-morrow," she said that night, as she was brushing her hair in their room.

Cordelia, who was taking off her shoes, looked up delightedly.

"Oh, Tilly—church? We're going to church?"

Tilly laughed; then an odd little twist came to her mouth.

"Yes, Cordelia; we're—going to church," she answered.

"What time?"

"Eleven o'clock, Genevieve said."

"Oh, won't that be fun—I mean, I'm very glad," corrected Cordelia, hastily, a confused red in her cheeks.

In Cordelia's bed that night, Cordelia thought happily:

"Maybe now I can get some new ideas for Uncle Thomas to put in his services. They do everything so differently here in the West, and Uncle's audiences get so small sometimes, specially Sunday evenings."

In Tilly's bed, Tilly, a little guilty as to conscience, was trying to excuse herself.

"Well, anyhow," she was arguing mentally, "Genevieve said 'everybody comes,' and if they 'come' they must 'go'; so of course we're 'going' to church."

Not until Cordelia was dropping off to sleep did something occur to her. She sat up, then, suddenly.

"Tilly," she called softly, "where is that church? Do we have to ride eighteen miles to Bolo?"

Tilly did not answer. She was asleep, decided Cordelia—it was dark, and Cordelia could not see the pillow Tilly was stuffing into her mouth.

* * * * *

Just after breakfast Sunday morning, Elsie Martin said a low word in Genevieve's ear, and drew her out of earshot of the others. Her eyes were anxious.

"Genevieve, do you have to dress up much for this kind of—of church?" she questioned.

"Not a bit, dear. Don't worry. Anything you have will be lovely."

"I know; but—well, you see, it's just this," she quavered. "Aunt Kate fixed up the girls' green chambray for me just before we came. I saw then it didn't look just right, but we were in such an awful hurry there wasn't time to do anything; and I was so excited, anyway, that I didn't seem to mind, much. But out here, in the bright light, it looks awfully!"

"Nonsense! That's all your own notion, Elsie," rejoined Genevieve, comfortingly. "I'm sure it looks lovely. Anyhow, it wouldn't matter if it didn't—here."

Elsie shook her head despondently.

"But you don't understand," she said. "You know the twins dress alike, and this was their green chambray. Aunt Kate always likes to use their things, she says, because there's always double quantity; but this time it didn't work so well. You see, Cora was sick a lot last summer, when they had this dress, and she didn't wear hers half so much as Clara did, so hers wasn't faded hardly any. It was an awful funny color to begin with; but it's worse now, with part of it one shade, and part another. You see, one sleeve's made of Cora's, and one of Clara's; and the front breadth is Cora's and the back is Clara's. Of course Aunt Kate cut it out where she could do it best, and didn't think but what they were alike; but you don't know what a funny-looking thing that dress is! I—I don't know whether to turn Clara toward folks, or Cora," she finished with a little laugh.

Genevieve heard the laugh—but she saw that it came through trembling lips.

"Well, I just wouldn't fret," she declared, with an affectionate little hug. "If you don't want to wear it, wear something else. What a nuisance clothes are, anyhow! I've always said I wished we didn't have to change our dress every time we turned around!"

Elsie's eyes became wistful. She shook her head sadly.

"You don't know anything about it, Genevieve. Your clothes haven't been a nuisance to you—even if you think they have. You see, you don't realize how nice it is to have such a lot of pretty things—and all new," she sighed as she turned away.

When Genevieve went to her room to dress for "church" that morning, she looked a little thoughtfully at the array of pretty frocks hanging in her closet.

"I wish I could give some to Elsie," she sighed; "but Elsie isn't poor, of course, and I suppose she—she wouldn't take them. But I suspect I don't half appreciate them myself—just as Elsie said," she finished, as she took down a fresh, white linen.

At quarter before eleven Cordelia Wilson knocked at Genevieve's door. Genevieve opened it to find Cordelia in a neat jacket suit, hat on, and gloves in hand.

"Am I all right, Genevieve?" she asked. "I wasn't quite sure just what to wear."

"Why, y-yes—only you don't need the hat, nor the gloves, dear; and I shouldn't think you'd want that coat, it's so warm!"

"Not want a hat, or gloves," burst out Cordelia, looking distinctly shocked. "Why, Genevieve Hartley! I know you do very strange things here in the West, but I did suppose you—you dressed properly to go to church!"

"But it isn't really church, Cordelia," smiled Genevieve. "I only call it so, you know. And of course we don't 'go' at all—only as far as the back gallery."

Cordelia stared, frowningly.

"You mean you don't drive off—anywhere?" she demanded. "That you have a service right here?"

"Yes. I thought you knew."

"But Tilly said—why, I don't know what she did say, exactly, but she let me think we were going to drive off somewhere. And look at me—rigged out like this! You know how she'll tease me!" There were almost tears in Cordelia's sensitive eyes.

"Has she seen you—in this?"

"No; but she will when I go back. I saw her whisk through the hall to our room just as I crossed through to come in here."

"Then we won't let her see you," chuckled Genevieve. "Here, let's have your hat and gloves and coat. I'll hide them in my closet. You can get them later when Tilly isn't around. Now run back and put a serene face on it. Just don't let her suspect you ever thought of your hat and gloves."

"But, do you think I ought to do—that? Won't it be—deceit?"

"No, dear, it won't," declared Genevieve, emphatically; "not any sort of deceit that's any harm. It will just be depriving Miss Tilly of the naughty fun she expected to have with you. You know how Tilly loves to tease folks. Well, she'll just find the tables turned, this time. Now run back quick, or she'll suspect things!" And, a little doubtfully, Cordelia went.

As she had expected, she found Tilly in their room.

"Why don't you get ready for church, Cordy?" demanded Tilly, promptly.

"I am ready. I dressed early, before you came in," returned Cordelia, trying to speak very unconcernedly. "Why? Don't you think this will do?"

"Oh, yes, of course. You look very nice," murmured Tilly, a little hastily, sending a furtive glance into Cordelia's face. There was nothing, apparently, about Cordelia to indicate that anything unexpected had occurred, or was about to occur; and she herself could not, of course, ask why no preparations for an eighteen-mile journey were being made, specially when she had pretended to be asleep the night before when Cordelia asked her question about that same journey. "You look very nice, I'm sure," murmured Tilly, again. And Cordelia, hearing the vague disappointment in Tilly's voice, was filled with joy—that yet carried a pang of remorse.

It was a little later, just as Tilly was leaving the room, that Cordelia turned abruptly.

"Tilly, I did have on my hat and coat," she burst out hurriedly. "I did think we were going to drive 'way off somewhere to church. But I found out and hid them in Genevieve's room, so you would not know and—and tease me," she finished breathlessly.

Tilly turned back with a laugh.

"You little rogue!" she began; then she stopped short. Her face changed. "But—why in the world did you tell me now?" she demanded curiously.

"I thought I ought to."

"Ought to!—ought to let me tease you!" echoed the dumfounded Tilly.

Cordelia stirred restlessly.

"Not that, of course, exactly," she stammered. "It's only that—that it seemed somehow like—deceiving you."

For a moment Tilly stared; then, suddenly, she darted across the room and put both arms around the minister's niece. Cordelia was not quite sure whether she was hugging her, or shaking her.

"Oh, you—you—I don't know what you are!" Tilly was exclaiming. "But you're a dear, anyhow!" And it was actually a sob that the astounded Cordelia heard as Tilly turned and fled from the room.

* * * * *

To Sunbridge eyes, "church" that morning was something very new and novel. At eleven o'clock Genevieve and her father piloted their guests to the back gallery where seats had been reserved for them. The minister, a dark-haired, tired-looking man with kind eyes, had arrived some time before on horseback. To Mrs. Kennedy, especially, he looked a little too unconventional in his heavy boots and coarse garments which, though plainly recently brushed, still showed the dust of the prairie in spots. He sat now at one side talking with Mr. Tim while his "congregation" was gathering.

And what a congregation it was! As Genevieve had said, everybody on the ranch came, except those whose duties prohibited them from coming. Singly, or in picturesque groups, they settled themselves comfortably on the back gallery, or along the covered way leading to the dining-room. Even Teresa, in a huge fresh apron that made her great bulk look even greater, sat just outside the dining-room door, where she could easily run in from time to time, to see that the roast chickens in the oven were not burning, nor the beets on the stove boiling dry.

The "pulpit" was a little stand placed at the house-end of the covered way. The "choir" was the piano in the living-room drawn up close to the window, with Genevieve herself seated at it. Nor was the "church" itself devoid of beauty, with its growing vines and flowers, and its shifting lights and shadows as the soft clouds sailed slowly through the blue sky overhead. As to the audience—no scholarly orator in a Fifth Avenue cathedral found that day more attentive listeners than did that tired-looking minister find in the curiously-assorted groups before him—the swarthy Mexicans, the picturesque cowboys, the eager-eyed, fresh-faced young girls from a far-away town in the East.

They sang first, Genevieve's own clear voice leading; and even Tilly, who seldom sang in church at home, found herself joining heartily in "Nearer my God to Thee," and "Bringing in the Sheaves." There was something so free, so whole-souled about the music in that soft outdoor air, that she, as well as some of the others, decided that never before had any music sounded so inspiring.

For the first two minutes after the preacher arose to begin his sermon, Mrs. Kennedy saw nothing but the dust on the right shoulder of his coat. But after that she saw nothing but his earnest eyes. She had fallen then quite under the sway of his clear, ringing voice.

"'While Josiah was yet young, in the sixteenth year of his age, he began to seek the God of his fathers,'" announced the clear, ringing voice as the text; and Genevieve, hearing it, wondered if the minister could have known that at least a part of his audience that day would be so exactly, or so very nearly, "in the sixteenth year" of their own age.

It was a good sermon, and it was well preached. The time, the place, the occasion, the atmosphere all helped, too. All the Happy Hexagons paid reverent attention. Tilly, fresh from her somewhat amazing experience with Cordelia, made many and stern resolutions to be everything that was good and helpful, nothing that was bad and hateful. Genevieve, who had slipped off her piano stool to an easier chair, sat with dreamy, tender eyes. She was thinking of the dear mother, who, as she could so well remember, had told her that she must always be good and brave and true first, before anything else.

"Good and brave and true!" She wondered if she could—always. It seemed so easy to do it now, with this good man's earnest voice in her ears. But it was so hard, so strangely hard, at other times. And there were so many things—so many, many little things—that to Aunt Julia and Miss Jane looked so big!—things, too, that to her seemed eminently all right.

"'When Josiah was yet young, in the sixteenth year of his age, he began to seek the God of his fathers,'" quoted the minister again, impressively; and Genevieve realized then, with misty eyes, that the sermon was done.

* * * * *

The minister stayed to dinner, of course; and, in spite of her interest in the sermon, Teresa had seen to it that the dinner was everything that one could ask of it. The minister had the place of honor at the table, and proved to be a most agreeable talker. Genevieve had not caught his name distinctly, but she thought it was "Jones." He lived in Bolo, he said, having recently moved there from a distant part of the state. He hoped that he might be able to do good work there. Certainly there was need that somebody do something. In response to Mr. Hartley's cordial invitation to stay a few days at the ranch, he answered with visible regret:

"Thank you, sir. Nothing would please me more, but it is quite out of the question. I must go back this afternoon. I have a service in Bolo this evening."

"You must be a busy man," observed Mr. Hartley, genially.

The minister sighed.

"I am—yet I can't do half that I want to. This outside work among the ranches I shall try to carry on as best I can. But you're all so afraid you'll have a neighbor nearer than a score of miles," he added with a whimsical smile, "that I can't get among you very often."

It was after dinner that the minister chanced to hear Genevieve speak of herself as a Happy Hexagon.

"Hexagon?—Hexagon?" he echoed smilingly. "And are you, too, a Happy Hexagon?" he asked, turning to the mistress of the Six Star Ranch.

"Why, yes. Do you mean you know another one?" questioned the girl, all interest immediately. "It's the name of our girls' club—the Hexagon Club."

"No, but I heard of one, once," rejoined the man. "And it isn't usual, you know, so it attracted my attention."

"But where was it? When was it? We supposed we were the only Happy Hexagons in the world," cried Genevieve.

The minister smiled.

"I found my Happy Hexagons at the bottom of a letter from the East."

"A letter from the East?" Genevieve's voice held now a curious note of wild unbelief.

"Yes. It came before we moved to Bolo. My elder daughter was teaching in the East, and was taken ill. Some of her girls wrote to us."

Genevieve sprang to her feet.

"Are you—you can't be—the Rev. Luke Jones!" she cried.

"That is my name."

"And is Quentina your daughter?"

It was the minister's turn to look amazed.

"Why, yes; but—how do you know? Are you—you can't be—my Happy Hexagons!" he ejaculated.

She nodded laughingly. She spoke, too; but what she said was not heard. All of the Happy Hexagons were talking by that time. The Rev. Mr. Jones, indeed, found himself besieged on all sides with eager questions and amazed comments.

Under cover of the confusion, Mr. Hartley turned in puzzled wonder to Mrs. Kennedy.

"Will you tell me what all this is about?" he begged.

Mrs. Kennedy smiled.

"Of course! I think perhaps it is all new to you. Last winter Miss Alice Jones, a Texas lady and the girls' Latin teacher, was taken ill. The girls were very attentive, and did lots of little things for her; but she grew worse and had to leave. Just before she went, the mother wrote a letter thanking the girls, and in the letter was a note signed 'Quentina Jones.' Quentina was a younger sister, it seemed, and she, too, wished to thank the girls. Of course the girls were delighted, and immediately answered it, signing themselves 'The Happy Hexagons.' The teacher went away then, and the girls heard nothing more. But they have talked of Quentina Jones ever since."

"But it's all so wonderful," cried Genevieve, her voice rising dominant at last. "Where is Miss Alice Jones, and how is she?"

"She is better, thank you, though not very strong yet. She is teaching in Colorado."

"Oh, I'm so glad," cried Genevieve, "but I wish we could see her, too. Only think, girls, of Quentina Jones being right here, only eighteen miles away!"

"One would think eighteen miles were a mere step!" laughed Tilly.

"They are—in Texas," retorted Genevieve. Then, to the minister she said: "Now tell us, please, Mr. Jones, what we can do. We want to see Quentina right away, quick. We can't wait! Can she come over? Can't she? We'd love to have her!"

The minister shook his head slowly.

"I'm afraid not, Miss Genevieve—thank you just the same. I'd love to have her. It would do her such a world of good, poor little girl, to have one happy time with all you young people! But my wife has a lame foot just now, and Quentina simply cannot be spared. You know she has several brothers, so we have quite a family. But, I'll tell you what—you young ladies must all come to see us."

"Oh, thank you! We'd love to—and we will, too." (Back in her ranch home, it was easy for Genevieve to slip into her old independent way of consulting no one's will but her own.) "When do you want us?"

"But, my dear," interposed Mrs. Kennedy, hastily, "if Mrs. Jones is not well, surely we cannot ask her to take in six noisy girls as guests!"

"Why, no—of course not," stammered Genevieve. The rest of the Happy Hexagons looked suddenly heartbroken. But the minister smiled reassuringly.

"My wife isn't ill—only lame; and she loves young people. She'll be just as eager for you to come as Quentina will be—and Quentina just simply won't take 'no' for an answer, I'm sure. She talked for days of the Happy Hexagons, after your letter came. You must come, only—" he hesitated, "only I'm afraid you'll be a little cramped for room. A village parsonage isn't a ranch, you know. But, if you don't mind sort of—picnicking, and having to stand up in the corner to sleep—" he paused quizzically.

"We adore standing up and sleeping in corners," declared Genevieve, promptly.

"Then shall we call it Tuesday?" smiled Mr. Jones.

"But how can they go?" questioned Mrs. Kennedy, in an anxious voice.

"Why, they might ride it," began Mr. Hartley, slowly; "still, that would hardly do—even should the ponies come in time—such a long trip when they haven't ridden any here, yet. I'll tell you. We'll let Carlos drive them over in the carriage early Tuesday morning. I reckon the seven of them can stow themselves away, somehow—it holds six with room to spare on every seat. Then, Wednesday afternoon, he can drive them back. Meanwhile, he can stay himself in the town and get some supplies that I'm needing."

"But seems to me that gives us a very short visit," demurred Mr. Jones, as he rose to take his leave.

"Quite long enough—for the good wife," declared Mrs. Kennedy, decisively. And thus the matter was settled.



CHAPTER XI

QUENTINA

Quite the most absorbing topic of conversation Monday was, of course, the coming visit to Quentina Jones.

"But what is her name?" demanded Mr. Hartley at last, almost impatiently. "It isn't 'Quentina,' of course. I know that man who was here Sunday would never have named a daughter of his 'Quentina.'"

"Her name is 'Clorinda Dorinda,'" replied Genevieve. "She told us so in her letter; but she said she was always called 'Quentina.' I don't know why."

"Whew! I should think she would be," laughed Mr. Hartley. "Only fancy having to be called 'Clorinda Dorinda' whenever you were wanted!"

"Sounds like a rhyming dictionary to me," chuckled Tilly. "'Clorinda, Dorinda, Lucinda, Miranda,'" she chanted.

Mr. Hartley laughed, and walked off.

"Well, I'll leave her to you, anyhow, whatever she is," he called back.

"I'll bet he's just dying to go with us, all the same," whispered Tilly, saucily.

Cordelia frowned, hesitated, then spoke.

"Auntie says ladies don't bet," she observed, in her severest manner.

"Oh, don't they?" snapped Tilly; then she, too, frowned, and hesitated. "All right, Cordy—Cordelia; see that you don't do it, then," she concluded good-naturedly.

Monday was a very quiet day for the girls at the ranch. Mrs. Kennedy had insisted from the first upon this. She said that the next two days would be quite exciting enough to call for all the rest possible beforehand. So, except for the usual watching of the boys' morning start to work, there was little but music, books, and letter-writing allowed.

Tuesday dawned clear, but very warm. The girls were all awake at sunrise, and were soon ready for the early breakfast. Almost at once, afterward, they stowed themselves—with little crowding but much giggling—in the carriage, and called gayly to Carlos: "We're all ready!"

"Yes, we're all aboard, Carlos," cried Genevieve.

"Good, Senorita! It is ver' glad I am to see you so prompt to the halter," grinned Carlos. "Quien sabe?—mebbe I didn't reckon on corrallin' the whole bunch of you so soon!"

Genevieve laughed, even while she made a wry face.

"I'm afraid Carlos remembers that I was never on time, girls," she pouted. "But you don't know, Carlos, what a marvel of promptness I've become back East—specially since somebody gave me a watch," she finished, smiling into the old man's face.

"All ready!" grinned Carlos, climbing into his seat.

"Let's give our Texas yell," proposed Tilly, softly, as she looked back to see Mrs. Kennedy, Mr. Hartley, and Mammy Lindy on the gallery steps. "Now count, Cordelia!"

And Cordelia did count. Once again her face expressed a tragedy of responsibility, and once again the resulting

"Texas, Texas, Tex—Tex—Texas! Texas, Texas, Rah! Rah! Rah! GENEVIEVE!"

was the glorious success it ought to have been. So to a responsive chorus of shouts, laughter, and hand-clapping, the Happy Hexagons drove away from the ranch house.

It was a pleasant drive, though a warm one. It did seem a little long, too, so anxious were they to reach their goal. The prairie sights and sounds, though interesting, were not so new, now. Even the two or three herds of cattle they met, and the groups of cowboys they saw galloping across the prairies, did not create quite the excitement they always had created heretofore. Quentina and the minister's home were so much more interesting to think of!

"What do you suppose she'll be like?" asked Elsie.

"Quien sabe?" laughed Genevieve.

"There! what does that mean?" demanded Tilly. "I've heard it lots of times since I've been here."

"'Who knows?'" translated Genevieve, smilingly.

"Yes, who does know?" retorted Tilly, not understanding. "But what does it mean?"

Genevieve laughed outright.

"That's just what it means—'Who knows?' The Mexicans and the cowboys use it a lot here, and when I come back I get to saying it, too."

"I should think you did," shrugged Tilly. "Well, anyhow, let's talk straight English for a while. Let's talk of Quentina. What do you suppose she's like, girls?"

"Let's guess," proposed Genevieve. "We can, you know, for Miss Jones was too sick to tell us anything, and we haven't a thing to go by but Quentina's letter, and that didn't tell much."

"All right, let's guess. Let's make a game of it," cried Tilly. "We'll each tell what we think, and then see who comes the nearest. You begin, Genevieve."

"All right. I think she's quiet and tall, and very dark like a Spaniard," announced Genevieve, weighing her words carefully.

"I think she's bookish, and maybe stupid," declared Tilly. "Her letter sounded queer."

"I think she's little, and got yellow hair and light-blue eyes," said Bertha.

"I think she's got curls—black ones—and looks lovely in red," declared Elsie Martin.

"We can trust you, Elsie, to get in something about her clothes," chuckled Tilly.

"Well, I think she's got brown eyes like Genevieve's, and brown hair like hers, too," asserted Alma Lane.

"Now, Cordelia," smiled Genevieve, "it's your turn. You haven't said, yet."

"There isn't anything left for me to say," replied Cordelia, in a slightly worried voice. "You've got all the pretty things used up. I should just have to say I think she's fat and homely—and I don't think I ought to say that, for it would be a downright fib. I don't think she's that at all!"

There was a general laugh at this; then, for a time, there was silence while the carriage rolled along the prairie road.

Carlos had no difficulty in finding the home of the Rev. Mr. Jones in Bolo. It proved to be a little house, unattractive, and very plain. It looked particularly forlorn with its bare little front yard, in which some one had made an attempt to raise nasturtiums and petunias.

"Mercy! I guess we'll have to stand up in corners to sleep," gurgled Tilly, as the carriage stopped before the side door.

"Sh-h!" warned Genevieve. "Tilly, isn't it awful? Only think of our Quentina's living here!"

At that moment the door of the little house opened, and Mr. Jones appeared. From around his feet there seemed literally to tumble out upon the steps several boys of "assorted sizes," as Tilly expressed it afterward. Then the girls saw her in the doorway—Quentina. She was slender, not very tall, but very pretty, with large, dark eyes, and fine yellow hair that fluffed and curled all about her forehead and ears and neck.

"O Happy Hexagons, Happy Hexagons, welcome, welcome, Happy Hexagons!" breathed the girl in the doorway ecstatically, clasping her hands.

"Sounds almost like our Texas yell," giggled Tilly, under her breath.

Genevieve was the first to reach the ground.

"Quentina—I know you're Quentina; and I'm Genevieve Hartley," she cried, before Mr. Jones had a chance to speak.

"Yes, this is Quentina," he said then, cordially shaking Genevieve's hand. "And now I'll let you present her to your young friends, please, because you can do it so much better than I."

They were all out now, on the ground, hanging back a little diffidently. It was this, perhaps, that made Cordelia think that something ought to be said or done. She came hurriedly forward as she caught Genevieve's eye and heard her own name called.

"Yes, I'm Cordelia, and I'm so glad to see you," she stammered; "and I'm so glad you're not fat and homely, too—er—that is," she corrected feverishly, "I mean—we didn't any of us get you right, you know."

"Get me—right?" Quentina opened her dark eyes to their fullest extent.

Cordelia blushed, and tried to back away. With her eyes she implored Tilly or Elsie to take her place.

It was Genevieve who came to the rescue.

"We'll have to own up, Quentina," she laughed. "On the way here we were trying to picture how you look; and of course we each had to guess a different thing, so we got all kinds of combinations."

"Yes, but we didn't get yours," chuckled Tilly, coming easily forward, with outstretched hand.

"Indeed we didn't," echoed Elsie, admiringly.

"Why, of course we couldn't," stammered Cordelia, still red of face. "We never, never could think of anything so pretty as you really are!"

Quentina laughed now, and raised hurried hands to hide the pretty red that had flown to her cheeks.

"Oh, you funny, funny Happy Hexagons!" she cried, in her sweet, Southern drawl.

Naturally there could be nothing stiff about the introductions, after that, and they were dispatched in short order, even to Mr. Jones's pulling the boys into line, and announcing:

"This is Paul, with the solemn face. And this grinning little chap is Edward—Ned, for short; and these are the twins, Bob and Rob."

"Are they both 'Robert'?" questioned Tilly, interestedly.

Mr. Jones smiled.

"Oh, no. Bob is Bolton, and Rob is Robert. The 'Rob and Bob' is Quentina's idea—she likes the sound of it."

"I told you!—she is a rhyming dictionary," whispered Tilly, in an aside that nearly convulsed the two girls that heard her.

Inside the house they all met "mother."

Mother, in spite of her lame foot, was a very forceful personality. She was bright and cheery, too, and she made the girls feel welcome and at home immediately.

"It's so good of you to come!" she exclaimed. "Poor Quentina has been shut up with me for weeks. But I'm better, now—lots better; and I shall soon be about again."

"I think it was very good of you to let us come," returned Genevieve, politely, "specially when you aren't well yourself. But we'll try not to make you any more trouble than we can't help."

"Trouble, dear child! I reckon we don't call you trouble," declared the minister's wife, fervently, "after all your kindness to my daughter, Alice." Genevieve raised a protesting hand, but Mrs. Jones went on smilingly. "And then that letter to Quentina—she's never ceased to talk and dream of the girls who sent it to her."

"Oh, I did like it so much—indeed I did," chimed in Quentina. "Why, Genevieve, I made a poem on it—a lovely poem just like Tennyson's 'Margaret,' you know; only I put in 'Hexagons,' and changed the words to fit, of course."

Tilly nudged Elsie violently, and Elsie choked a spasmodic giggle into a cough; but Quentina unhesitatingly went on.

"It began:

"'O sweet pale Hexagons, O rare pale Hexagons, What lit your eyes with tearful power, Like moonlight on a falling shower? Why sent you, loves, so full and free, Your letter sweet to little me?'

That's just the first, you know," smiled Quentina, engagingly, "and of course when I wrote it I didn't know you weren't really 'pale,' at all; but then, we can just call that part poetic license."

Genevieve laughed frankly. Tilly giggled. Cordelia looked nervously from them to Quentina.

"I'm sure, that—that's very pretty," she faltered.

Mrs. Jones smiled.

"I'm afraid, for a little, you won't know just what to make of Quentina," she explained laughingly. "We're used to her turning everything into jingles, but strangers are not."

"Oh, mother, I don't," cried Quentina, reproachfully. "There's heaps and heaps of things that I never wrote a line of poetry about. But how could I help it?—that beautiful letter, and the Happy Hexagons, and all! It just wrote itself. I sent it East, too, to a magazine, two or three times—but they didn't put it in," she added, as an afterthought.

"Why, what a shame!" murmured Tilly.

Genevieve looked up quickly. Tilly was wearing her most innocent, most angelic expression, but Genevieve knew very well the naughtiness behind it. Quentina, however, accepted it as pure gold.

"Yes, wasn't it?" she rejoined cheerfully. "I felt right bad, particularly as I was going to send you all a copy when it was published."

"You can give us a manuscript copy, Quentina. We would love that," interposed Genevieve, hurriedly. Behind Quentina's back she gave Tilly then a frowning shake of the head—though it must be confessed that her dancing eyes rather spoiled the effect of it.

"Maybe it's because her name rhymes—'Clorinda Dorinda,'" suggested Tilly, interestedly; "maybe that's why she likes to write poetry so well."

Mrs. Jones laughed.

"That's what her father says. But Clorinda herself changed her own name about as soon as she could talk. She couldn't manage the hard 'Clorinda' very well, and I had a Mexican nurse girl, Quentina, whose name she much preferred. So very soon she was calling herself 'Quentina,' and insisting that every one else should do the same."

"But it's so much prettier," declared the minister's daughter, fervently. "Of course 'Clorinda Dorinda' are some pretty, because they rhyme so, but I like 'Quentina' better. Besides, there are lots more pretty words to make that rhyme with—Florena, Dulcina, Rowena, and verbena, you know."

"And 'you've seen her,'" suggested Tilly, gravely.

Quentina frowned a moment in thought.

"Y-yes," she admitted; "but I don't think that's a very pretty one."

It was Genevieve this time who choked a giggle into a cough, and who, a moment later, turned very eagerly to welcome an interruption in the person of the Rev. Mr. Jones.

Soon after this Quentina suggested a trip through the house.

"You see I want to show you where you're going to sleep," she explained.

"Oh, Mr. Jones told us that," observed Tilly, as the seven girls trooped up the narrow stairway. "He said we were to stand up in the corners." Tilly spoke with the utmost gravity.

Quentina turned, wide-eyed.

"Why, you couldn't! You'd never sleep a bit," she demurred concernedly. "Besides, it isn't necessary."

All but Tilly and Genevieve tittered audibly. Tilly still looked the picture of innocence. Genevieve frowned at her sternly, then stepped forward and put her arm around Quentina's waist.

"Tilly was only joking, Quentina," she explained. "When you know Tilly better you'll find she never by any chance talks sense—but always nonsense," she finished, looking at Tilly severely.

Tilly wrinkled up her nose and pouted; but her eyes laughed.

"There, here's my room," announced Quentina, a moment later. "We've put a couch in it, and if you don't mind my sleeping with you, three can be here. Then across the hall here is the twins' room, and two more can sleep in this; and Paul and Ned's room down there at the end of the hall will take the other two. There! You see we've got it fixed right well."

"Oh, yes—well for us; but how about the boys?" cried Genevieve. "Where will they sleep?"

Quentina's lips parted, but before the words were uttered, a new thought seemed to have come to her. With an odd little glance at Tilly, she drawled demurely:

"Oh, they are going to sleep in the corners."

They all laughed this time.

"Well, now we've done the whole house, and we'll take the yard," proposed Quentina, as, a little later, she led the way down-stairs and out of doors. "There! aren't my nasturtiums beautiful?" she exulted, with the air of a fond mother displaying her first-born. She was pointing to a bed of straggling, puny plants, beautifully free from weeds, and showing here and there a few brilliant blossoms.

Tilly turned her back suddenly. Cordelia looked distressed. Bertha cried thoughtlessly:

"Oh, but you ought to see Genevieve's, Quentina, if you want to see nasturtiums!"

"Oh, but I have Carlos," cut in Genevieve, hurriedly, "and Carlos can make anything grow. What a pretty dark one this is," she finished, bending over one of the plants.

Quentina's face clouded.

"I don't suppose they are much, really," she admitted. "But I've worked so hard over them! Father says the earth isn't good at all. I was so pleased when that big red one came out! I made a poem on it right off:

"'O nasturtium, sweet nasturtium, Did you blossom just for me? Where, oh, where did you unearth 'em— All those colors that I see?'

That's the way it began. Wasn't I lucky to think of that 'unearth 'em?' Besides, it's really true, you know. They do unearth 'em, and 'twas such a nice rhyme for nasturtium. Now there's petunia; I think that's a perfectly beautiful sounding word, but I've never been able to find a single thing that rhymed with it. I do love flowers so," she added, after a moment; "but we've never had many. They always burn up, or dry up, or get eaten up, or just don't come up at all. Of course we've never had a really pretty place. Ministers like us don't, you know," she finished cheerfully.

There was no reply to this. Not one of the Happy Hexagons could think of anything to say. For once even Tilly was at a loss for words. It was Quentina herself who broke the silence.

"Now tell me all about the East. Let's go up on the gallery and sit down. I do so want to go East to school; but of course I can't."

"Why not?" asked Bertha.

"Oh, it costs too much," returned Quentina. "You know ministers don't have money for such things." Her voice was still impersonally cheerful.

"How old are you?" asked Elsie, as they seated themselves on chairs and steps.

"Sixteen last month."

"Oh, I wish you could go," cried Genevieve. "Wouldn't it be just lovely if you could come to Sunbridge and go to school with us!"

"Where is Sunbridge? I always thought of it as just 'East,' you know."

"In New Hampshire."

"Oh," said Quentina, with a sigh of disappointment. "I hoped it was in Massachusetts, near Boston, you know. I thought Alice said it was near Boston."

"Well, we aren't so awfully far from Boston," bridled Tilly. "It only takes an hour and a half or less to go there. I go with mother every little while when I'm home."

Quentina sprang to her feet.

"Boston! Oh, girls, you don't know how I want to see Boston, and Paul Revere's grave, and the Common, and the old State House, and Bunker Hill, and that lovely North Church where they hung the lantern, you know.

'Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,'"

she began to chant impressively. "Oh, don't you just love that poem?"

"Who was Paul Revere?" asked Tilly, pleasantly.

"Paul Revere!" exclaimed Quentina, plainly shocked. "Who was Paul Revere!"

"Tilly!" scolded Genevieve, as soon as she could command her voice. "Quentina, that's only some of Tilly's nonsense. Tilly knows very well who Paul Revere was."

"Yes, of course she does; and we all do," interposed Elsie Martin. "But I'll own right up, I don't know half as much about all those historical things and places as I ought to."

"Neither do I," chimed in Bertha. "Just because they're right there handy, and we can go any time, we—"

"We don't go any time," laughed Alma Lane, finishing the sentence for her.

"I know it," said Elsie. "We had a cousin with us for two weeks last summer, and she just doted on old relics and graveyards. She made us take her into Boston 'most every day, and she asked all sorts of questions which I couldn't answer."

"Yes, I know; but excuse me, please," put in Tilly, flippantly. "I don't want any graveyards and relics in mine."

"That's slang, Tilly," reproved Cordelia.

"Is it?" murmured Tilly, serenely.

"Besides, people come from miles and miles just to see those things that we neglect, right at our doors, almost."

"But how can you neglect them?" remonstrated Quentina. "Why, if I ever go to Boston, I sha'n't sleep nor eat till I've seen Paul Revere's grave!"

"Well, I shouldn't sleep nor eat if I did," shuddered Tilly.

"You mean you've never seen it?" gasped Quentina, unbelievingly.

"Guilty!" Tilly held up her hand unblushingly.

"Never you mind, Quentina," soothed Genevieve. "We are interested in those things, really."

"Then you have seen it?"

"Er—n-no, not that one," confessed Genevieve, coloring. "But I've seen heaps of other graves there," she assured her hopefully, as if graves were the only open door to Quentina's favor.

"Oh, you've had such chances," envied Quentina. "Just think—Boston! You said you were near Boston?"

"Oh, yes."

"Less than two hours away?"

"Why, yes," exclaimed Tilly, "I told you. We're less than an hour and a half away."

"And are you a D. A. R., and Colonial Dames, and Mayflower Society members, and all that?"

"Dear me! I don't know," laughed Genevieve. "Why?"

"And do you read the Atlantic Monthly, and eat beans Saturday night, and fishballs Sunday morning?" still hurried on Quentina. "You don't any of you wear glasses, and I don't think you speak very low."

"Anything else?" asked Tilly politely.

"Oh, yes, lots of things," answered Quentina, "but I've forgotten most of them."

"Quentina, what are you talking about?" laughed Genevieve.

Quentina smiled oddly, then she sighed.

"It wasn't true, of course. I knew it couldn't be."

"What wasn't true?"

"Something I found in one of father's church papers about Rules for Living in New England. I cut it out. Wait a minute—it's here, somewhere!" And, to the girls' amazement, she dived into a pocket at the side of her dress, pulling out several clippings which seemed, mostly, to be verse. One was prose, and it was on this she pounced. "Here it is. Listen." And she read: