chilly when her son presented the stranger as his good friend and
neighbor, Keith Cameron. She was still privately convinced that he
looked a criminal--though, if pressed, she must surely have admitted
that he was an uncommonly good-looking young outlaw. It would seem
almost as if she regarded his being a decent, law-abiding citizen as
pure effrontery.

Miss Hayes greeted him with a smile of apprehension which plainly
amused him. Beatrice was frankly impersonal in her attitude; he
represented a new species of the genus man, and she, too, evidently
regarded him in the light of a strange animal, viewed unexpectedly at
close range.

While he was helping Dick mend the double-tree with a piece of rope, she
studied him curiously. He was tall--taller even than Sir Redmond, and
more slender. Sir Redmond had the straight, sturdy look of the soldier
who had borne the brunt of hard marches and desperate fighting; Mr.
Cameron, the lithe, unconscious grace and alertness of the man whose
work demands quick movement and quicker eye and brain. His face was
tanned to a clear bronze which showed the blood darkly beneath; Sir
Redmond's year of peace had gone far toward lightening his complexion.
Beatrice glanced briefly at him and admired his healthy color, and was
glad he did not have the look of an Indian. At the same time, she caught
herself wishing that Sir Redmond's eyes were hazel, fringed with very
long, dark lashes and topped with very straight, dark brows--eyes which
seemed always to have some secret cause for mirth, and to laugh quite
independent of the rest of the face. Still, Sir Redmond had very nice
eyes--blue, and kind, and steadfast, and altogether dependable--and his
lashes were quite nice enough for any one. In just four seconds Beatrice
decided that, after all, she did not like hazel eyes that twinkle