Sheila's Irish mother had wooed and won him and had made a merry midsummer madness in his life, as brief as a dream.

She hopped out of her seat at the wheel and shook Sheila's hand and told her to "jump right in.

Sheila's heart stopped in her breast.

Sheila's fear subsided.

Mrs. Hudson had helped to split the protecting shell which had saved Sheila's growing dreams.

" Sheila's heart suffered one of the terrible swift enlargements of angry youth.

Sheila's voice was delicately tinged with mockery.

Sheila's eyes were wounded with remorse.

He lifted his arm with Sheila's hand on it and touched it with his lips.

He leaned even farther forward, tilting on the front legs of his chair and thrusting his face close to Sheila's "'A pretty barmaid!' said he.

He tried to remember that he was Mr. James Greely, of the Millings National Bank, and, remembering at the same time something that the girl from Cheyenne had said about his smile, he caught Sheila's eye deliberately and made use of his dimple.

There were days when Sheila's pony, a gift from Jim Greely, was led up earlier than the hour of Hudson's arrival, on which days Sheila, in a short skirt and a boy's shirt and a small felt Stetson, would ride away alone toward the mountain of her dreams.

Sheila's Irish blood had boiled up into her brain.

What those five months had been to Dickie, through what abasements and exaltations, furies and despairs he had traveled since he had looked up from Sheila's slippered feet with his heart turned backward like a pilot's wheel, was only faintly indicated in his face.

"Here's a note for you, Miss Arundel," she said, coming over to Sheila's post at the window, where she was trying to hide the traces of her tears.

An astonished little voice in Sheila's brain here seemed to counter-question mechanically "Why not, indeed?""I cannot think of anything but you and how I love you.

At sight of him Sheila's heart leaped as though it had been struck.

Sheila's lassitude was startled by his word into a faint, unwilling smile.

Sheila's quick, Celtic nerves tormented her.

" There was that in his voice when he said this that touched Sheila's heart, profoundly.

There was very great courage in Sheila's short, lonely march through the little grove of cottonwood trees.

" Hilliard, still smiling, bowed to her, took Sheila's hand for an instant, then moved easily across the room and settled on his heels at one corner of the hearth.

She patted Sheila's shoulder when she passed the girl at work.

What's to scare me of you?" An awful conviction of helplessness depressed Sheila's heart, but she kept her eyes leveled on Miss Blake's.

That was Sheila's prayer.