"Doesn't that sound funny!" gasped Nan. "Fancy! Your own mother
never having seen you, Rhoda!"

"Only with her fingers," sighed Rhoda. "But mother says she has ten
eyes to our two apiece. She 'sees' with the end of every finger and
thumb. It is quite wonderful how much she learns about things by
just touching them. And she rides as bravely as though she had her
sight."

"My!" exclaimed Nan, with a little shudder. "It would scare me to
see her."

"Oh, she rides a horse that is perfectly safe. Old Cherrypie seems
to know she can't see and that he has to be extremely careful of
her."

It was when Rhoda told more about the ranch, however--of the bands
of half-wild horses, the herds of shorthorns, the scenery all about
her home, the acres upon acres of wild roses in the near-by
canyons, the rugged gulches and patches of desert on which nothing
but cacti grew, the high mesas that were Nature's
garden-spots--that Nan Sherwood was stirred most deeply.

"I think it must be a most lovely place, that Rose Ranch!" she
cried on one occasion.

"It is a lovely place; and I'd dearly love to have you see it, Nan
Sherwood. You must go home with me when school is over. Oh, what a
lark! That would be just scrumptious, as Bess says."