the brutal duty of turning away the stranger within our gates. Fortune
frowned on me, and I rose reluctantly from my chair.

"Air you the hired man?" said the woman in the buggy, as I looked
askance into her face.

"I work here," I replied, "for my board--which is not of the best."

"Ye seem kinder thin. Say--air the lords to home?"

"The lords?"

"Yes, the lords. They tole me back ther," she jerked her head in the
direction of the village, "that two English lords owned a big cattle-
ranch right here; an' I thought, mebbee, that they'd like ter see--
me."

A pathetic accent of doubt quavered upon the personal pronoun.

"Ye kin tell 'em," she continued, "that I'm here. Yes, sir, I'm a
book-agent, an' my book will interest them--sure."

Her eyes, soft blue eyes, bespoke hope; her lips quivered with tell-
tale anxiety. Something inharmonious about the little woman, a queer
lack of adjustment between voice and mouth, struck me as singular, but
not unpleasing.

"It's called," she pleaded, in the tenderest tones, "_A Golden Word
from Mother_. I sell it bound in cloth, sheep, or moroccy. It's
perfectly lovely--in moroccy."