She stopped short at sight of Elizabeth. She had been chewing gum--Lizzie
was always chewing gum--but her jaws ceased action in sheer astonishment.

"This is your cousin Bessie, come all the way from Montana on horseback,
Lizzie. She's your aunt Bessie's child. Her folks is dead now, and she's
come to live with us. You must see ef you can't get her a place in the
ten-cent store 'long with you," said the grandmother.

Lizzie came airily forward, and grasped her cousin's hand in mid-air,
giving it a lateral shake that bewildered Elizabeth.

"Pleased to meet you," she chattered glibly, and set her jaws to work
again. One could not embarrass Lizzie long. But she kept her eyes on the
stranger, and let them wander disapprovingly over her apparel in a pointed
way as she took out the long hat-pins from the cumbersome hat she wore and
adjusted her ponderous pompadour.

"Lizzie'll have to help fix you up," said the aunt noting Lizzie's glance.
"You're all out of style. I suppose they get behind times out in Montana.
Lizzie, can't you show her how to fix her hair pompadour?"

Lizzie brightened. If there was a prospect of changing things, she was not
averse to a cousin of her own age; but she never could take such a
dowdy-looking girl into society, not the society of the ten-cent store.

"O, cert!" answered Lizzie affably. "I'll fix you fine. Don't you worry.
How'd you get so awful tanned? I s'pose riding. You look like you'd been
to the seashore, and lay out on the beach in the sun. But 'tain't the
right time o' year quite. It must be great to ride horseback!"