confidence yesterday, "is there really anything troubles you? Tell me,
dear. What is it?"

"Oh, nothing--EVERYTHING! It's no use,--YOU can't understand! YOU like
it, I know you do. I can see it; it's your style. But it's stupid, it's
awful, Clarence! With mamma snooping over you and around you all day,
with her 'dear child,' 'mamma's pet,' and 'What is it, dear?' and 'Tell
it all to your own mamma,' as if I would! And 'my own mamma,' indeed! As
if I didn't know, Clarence, that she ISN'T. And papa, caring for nothing
but this hideous, dreary rancho, and the huge, empty plains. It's worse
than school, for there, at least, when you went out, you could see
something besides cattle and horses and yellow-faced half-breeds! But
here--Lord! it's only a wonder I haven't run away before!"

Startled and shocked as Clarence was at this revelation, accompanied as
it was by a hardness of manner that was new to him, the influence of
the young girl was still so strong upon him that he tried to evade it as
only an extravagance, and said with a faint smile, "But where would you
run to?"

She looked at him cunningly, with her head on one side, and then said:--

"I have friends, and"--

She hesitated, pursing up her pretty lips.

"And what?"

"Relations."