“Wait!  A want to leave a note,” said Matthews.

“May I look in and see what bachelor confusion is like?” asked Eleanor.

She wanted to see if he had noticed the framed picture.  Noticed—­bless you?  The thing hung skugee on its nail; and there was a sprig of mountain everlasting stuck in the wire; and Eleanor would really have liked to see whether the glass above that picture were blurred.  She leaned over the couch examining it while Matthews wrote a note; and she went hurriedly out of the door hot of face and happy.

The old man’s note read:  We’re going along to the Ridge to see that little Irish runt.  If you chance back, will you happen along to see the old man.  I’ll keep her till six.

“It ain’t the truth I’m tellin’ y’:  it’s ownly what I’ve heerd.”

Meestress Lizzie O’Finnigan stood in the opening of the tent flap, a lonely little face, a lonely little figure in her tawdry rags, a lonely little soul in the great lone Forest, like a little mite lost in the big universe, Eleanor thought.  She was telling them about the “Throuble expected at th’ moine; an’ faather bein’ on hand t’ take a fist; an’ th’ gen’leman from Waashin’ton waitin’ for the Ranger man t’ come back; an’ th’ goin’s on raported in the paphers.  Ah, h’ waz a baad man, wuz the Ranger, faather said.”

“Do you read the paper, little one?” broke in Matthews.

“Nut the print, sor, but I do th’ pitchers; an’ th’ murthers; an’ thim’s all pitchered out plain so I can read!  Faather sez he wun’t have his independence proposed upon; if th’ don’t give him twinty thousan’ fur settin’ toight here, he’ll peach; but about th’ mine, th’ Ranger man iz expected t’ make throuble, an’ faather iz all powerful quick with his fist, sor, ‘specially when he’s in drink; an’ he’s t’ be on hand.  It ain’t th’ truth I’m tellin’ y’, sor; it’s ownly what I’ve heerd.”

“And if you sit tight here for five years, you are going to be wealthy?” asked Eleanor, taking her by the hand and leading her out to the woods.

The unwonted act almost startled the little face.  She looked up at Eleanor questioningly.  “Y’s, mam, waal-thy,” she said.  “Faather sez when we’re waal-thy, he’ll be a gen’leman an’ Oil be a loidy.”

“All you need, to be a lady, or a gentleman is, to be wealthy?  Is that it?” asked the old frontiersman laughing.

“Yes, sor,” said the child solemnly, “Faather wull shure be a gen’leman.”

“Do you like living here?” asked Eleanor.

“No, mam, I don’t think much of it!  In Smelter City, there wuz curcuses; an’ elephants on all the bills of fare; an’ loidies dancin’ on th’r heads!  Faather sez if I keep on dancin’ as foine as I do now, mebbie I’ll be able t’ dance on m’ head; but I wouldn’t like to dance without any skeerts, wud y’?”

“No, A wouldn’t,” answered the preacher quickly; and Eleanor laughed.