treasures, locked up, guarded, perfect in every detail, and safe.

He and Mrs. White always spoke of Santa Paloma as a "jay" town, and
compared it, to its unutterable disadvantage, to other and larger
cities, but still, business reasons would always keep them there for
the greater part of the year, and they were both glad to hear that a
fabulously wealthy widow, and a woman prominent in every other
respect as well, had come to live in Santa Paloma. Mrs. White
determined to play her game very carefully with Mrs. Burgoyne; there
should be no indecent hurry, there should be no sudden overtures at
friendship. "But, poor thing! She will certainly find our house an
oasis in the desert!" Mrs. White comfortably decided, putting on the
very handsomest of her afternoon gowns to go and call formally at
the Hall.

Mrs. Burgoyne and the little girls were always most cordial to
visitors. They spent these first days deep in gardening, great heaps
of fragrant dying weeds about them, and raw vistas through the
pruned trees already beginning to show the gracious slopes of the
land, and the sleepy Lobos down beneath the willows. The Carew
children and the little Browns were often there, fascinated by the
outdoor work, as children always are, and little Billy Valentine
squirmed daily through his own particular gap in the hedge, and took
his share of the fun with a deep and silent happiness. Billy gave
Mrs. Burgoyne many a heartache, with his shock of bright, unbrushed
hair, his neglected grimed little hands, his boyish little face that
was washed daily according to his own small lights, with surrounding
areas of neck and ears wholly overlooked, and his deep eyes, sad
when he was sad, and somehow infinitely more pathetic when he was
happy. Sometimes she stealthily supplied Billy with new garters, or