In the meantime the being whom Martin had dismissed with this majestic wave of his hand stood in the middle of the Webster kitchen, confronting the critical eyes of its mistress.

“Yes, Aunt Ellen,” the girl was saying, catching the elder woman’s stiff fingers in hers, “I’m Lucy. Do you think I look like Dad? And am I at all what you expected?”

Ellen drew her hands uncomfortably from the impulsive grasp but did not reply immediately. She was far too bewildered to do so.

Lucy was not in the least what she had expected,—that was certain. In the delicate oval face there was no trace of Thomas’s heavily modeled features; nor was Lucy indebted to the Websters for her aureole of golden hair, the purity of her blond skin, or her grave brown eyes. Thomas had been a massively formed, kindly, plain-featured man; but his daughter was beautiful. Even Ellen, who 39 habitually scoffed at all that was fair and banished the Æsthetic world as far from her horizon as possible, was forced to acknowledge this.

In the proudly poised head, the small, swiftly moving hands, and the tiny feet there was a birdlike alertness which was the epitome of action. The supple body, however, lacked the bird’s fluttering uncertainty; rather the figure bespoke a control that had its birth in an absence of all self-consciousness and the obedience of perfectly trained muscles to a compelling will.

Without a shadow of embarrassment Lucy endured her aunt’s inspection.

“Anybody’d think,” commented Ellen to herself in a mixture of indignation and amusement, “that she was a princess comin’ a-visitin’ instead of bein’ a charity orphan.”

Yet although she fumed inwardly at the girl’s attitude, she did not really dislike it. Spirit flashed in the youthful face, and Ellen admired spirit. She would have scorned a cringing, apologetic Webster. Unquestionably in her niece’s calm assurance there was no hint of the dependent.

As she stood serenely in the center of the room, Lucy’s gaze wandered over her aunt’s 40 shoulder and composedly scanned every detail of the kitchen, traveling from ceiling to floor, examining the spotless shelves, the primly arranged pots and pans, the gleaming tin dipper above the sink. Then the roving eyes came back to the older woman and settled with unconcealed curiosity upon her lined and sharply cut features.

Beneath the intentness of the scrutiny Ellen colored uneasily.

“Well?” she demanded tartly.

Lucy started.

“You seem to have made up your mind about me,” went on the rasping voice. “Am I what you expected?”

“No.”

The monosyllable came quietly.

“What sort of an aunt were you lookin’ for?”

Lucy waited a moment and then replied with childlike directness:

“I thought you’d be more like Dad. And you don’t look in the least like an invalid.”

“You’re disappointed I ain’t sicker, eh?” commented Ellen grimly.

“No, indeed,” answered Lucy. “I’m glad to find you so strong. But it makes me feel 41 you do not need me as much as I thought you did. You are perfectly able to take care of yourself without my help.”

“Oh, I can take care of myself all right, young woman,” Ellen returned with an acid smile. “I don’t require a nurse—at least not yet.”

Lucy maintained a thoughtful silence.

“I don’t quite understand why you sent for me,” she presently remarked.

“Didn’t I write you I was lonesome?”

“Yes. But you’re not.”

Ellen laughed in spite of herself.

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“You don’t look lonesome.”

Again the elder woman chuckled.

“Mebbe I do, an’ mebbe I don’t,” she responded. “Anyhow, you can’t always judge of how folks feel by the way they look.”

“I suppose not.”

The reply was spoken politely but without conviction.

“An’ besides, I had other reasons for gettin’ you here,” her aunt went on. “I mentioned ’em in my letter.”

“I don’t remember the other reasons.”

Ellen stared, aghast. 42

“Why—why—the property,” she managed to stammer.

“Oh, that.”

The words were uttered with an indifference too genuine to be questioned.

“Yes, the property,” repeated Ellen with cutting sarcasm. “Ain’t you interested in money; or have you got so much already that you couldn’t find a use for any more?”

The thrust told. Into the girl’s cheek surged a flame of crimson.

“I haven’t any money,” she returned with dignity. “Dad left me almost penniless. His illness used up all we had. Nevertheless, I was glad to spend it for his comfort, and I can earn more when I need it.”

“Humph.”

“Yes,” went on Lucy, raising her chin a trifle higher, “I am perfectly capable of supporting myself any time I wish to do so.”

“Mebbe you’d rather do that than stay here with me,” her aunt suggested derisively.

“Maybe,” was the simple retort. “I shall see.”

Ellen bit her lip and then for the second time her sense of humor overcame her.

“I guess there’s no doubtin’ you’re a 43 genuine Webster,” she replied good-humoredly. “I begin to think we shall get on together nicely.”

“I hope so.”

There was a reservation in the words that nettled Ellen.

“Why shouldn’t we?” she persisted.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t you like your aunt?”

“Not altogether.”

The audacity of the reply appealed to the older woman, and her eyes twinkled. “Not altogether, eh?” she echoed. “Now I’m sorry to hear that because I like you very much.”

Lucy smiled. It was a radiant smile, disclosing prettily formed white teeth and a lurking dimple.

“That’s nice.”

“But you ain’t a-goin’ to return the compliment?”

“Not yet.”

It was long since Ellen had been so highly entertained.

“Well,” she observed with undiminished amusement, “I’ve evidently got to be on my good behavior if I want to keep such an independent young lady as you in the house.” 44

“Why shouldn’t I be independent?”

A few moments before Ellen would have met the challenge with derision; but now something caused her to restrain the retort that trembled on her tongue and say instead:

“Of course you’ve got a right to be independent. The folks that ain’t ought to be made way with.”

Her affirmation surprised her. She would not have confessed it, but a strange sense of respect for the girl before her had driven her to utter them.

Lucy greeted the remark graciously.

“That’s what I think,” she replied.

“Then at least we agree on somethin’,” returned Ellen dryly, “an’ mebbe before I put my foot in it an’ lose this bit of your good opinion, I’d better take you up to your room.”

She caught up the heavy satchel from the floor.

“Oh, don’t,” Lucy protested. “Please let me take it. I’m used to carrying heavy things. I am very strong.”

“Strong, are you?” questioned Ellen, without, however, turning her head or offering to surrender the large leather holdall. “An’ how, pray, did you get so strong?” She passed 45 into the hall and up the stairs as she spoke, Lucy following.

“Oh, driving horses, doing housework, cooking, cleaning, and shooting,” the girl replied. Then as if a forgotten activity had come to her mind as an afterthought, she added gaily: “And sawing wood, I guess.”

“You can do things like that?”

“Yes, indeed. I had to after Mother died and we moved to Bald Mountain where Dad’s mine was. I did all the work for my father and ten Mexicans.”

“You? Why didn’t your father get a woman in?”

Lucy broke into a merry laugh.

“A woman! Why, Aunt Ellen, there wasn’t a woman within twenty miles. It was only a mining camp, you see; just Dad and his men.”

“An’ you mean to tell me you were the sole woman in a place like that?”

Lucy’s silvery laughter floated upward.

“The ten Mexicans who boarded with us were engineers and bosses,” she explained. “There were over fifty miners in the camp besides.”

Stopping midway up the staircase Ellen wheeled and said indignantly: 46

“An’ Thomas kep’ you in a settlement like that?”

“Who?”

“Your father.”

“Why not?”

“’Twarn’t no place for a girl.”

“It was the place for me.”

“Why?”

“Because Dad was there.”

Something in the reply left Ellen wordless and made her continue her way upstairs without answering. When she did speak, it was to say in a gentler tone:

“Mebbe you’ll like the room I’m going to give you. It used to belong to your Dad when he was a little boy.”

She lifted the latch of a paneled door and stood looking into a large bedroom. The sun slanted across a bare, painted floor, which was covered by a few braided rugs, old and worn; there was a great four-poster about which were draped chintz curtains, yellowed by age, and between the windows stood a mahogany bureau whose brasses were tarnished by years of service; two stiff ladder-back chairs, a three-cornered washstand, and a few faded photographs in pale gilt frames completed the furnishings. 47

With swift step Lucy crossed the room and gazed up at one of the pictures.

“That’s Dad!”

Ellen nodded.

“I’d no idea he was ever such a chubby little fellow. Look at his baby hands and his drum!”

She paused, looking intently at the picture. Then in a far-away tone she added:

“And his eyes were just the same.”

For several minutes she lingered, earnest and reminiscent.

“And is this you, Aunt Ellen?” she asked, motioning toward another time-dimmed likeness hanging over the bed.

“Yes.”

A silence fell upon the room. Ellen fidgeted.

“I’ve changed a good deal since then,” she observed, after waiting nervously for some comment.

“You’ve changed much more than Dad.”

“How?”

Curiosity impelled her to cross to Lucy’s side and examine the photograph.

“Your eyes—your mouth.”

“What about ’em?” 48

“I—I—don’t believe I could explain it,” responded Lucy slowly.

“Mebbe you’d have liked me better as a little girl,” grinned her aunt whimsically.

“I—yes. I’m sure I should have liked you as a little girl.”

The reply piqued Ellen. She bent forward and scrutinized the likeness more critically. The picture was of a child in a low-cut print dress and pantalettes,—a resolute figure, all self-assurance and self-will.

It was easy to trace in the face the features of the woman who confronted it: the brows of each were high, broad, and still bordered by smoothly parted hair; the well-formed noses, too, were identical; but the eyes of the little maiden in the old-fashioned gown sparkled with an unmalicious merriment and frankness the woman’s had lost, and the curving mouth of the child was unmarred by bitter lines. Ellen stirred uncomfortably.

As she looked she suddenly became conscious of a desire to turn her glance away from the calm gaze of her youthful self. Yes, the years had indeed left their mark upon her, she inwardly confessed. She did not look like that 49 now. Lucy was right. Her eyes had changed, and her mouth, too.

“Folks grow old,” she murmured peevishly. “Nobody can expect to keep on looking as they did when they were ten years old.”

Abruptly she moved toward the door.

“There’s water in the pitcher, an’ there’s soap and towels here, I guess,” she remarked. “When you get fixed up, come downstairs; supper’ll be on the table.”

The door banged and she was gone. But as she moved alone about the kitchen she was still haunted by the clear, questioning eyes of the child in the photograph upstairs. They seemed to follow her accusingly, reproachfully.

“Drat old pictures!” she at last burst out angrily. “They’d ought to be burnt up—the whole lot of them! They always set you thinkin’.”