The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine

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СКАЧАТЬ thing, and there is a great deal of false pretense about it. Individually, they would overlook the fact that I was accused of murder in Idaho--the gold mine would help some of them to do that! But if it should ever get in their papers here, they would collectively think it their duty to each other not to recognize me."

      "Oh, Montana, my dear child, why do you not forget that horrible life, and leave your mind free to partake of the advantages now surrounding you?" and Miss Seldon sighed with real distress, and dropped her ivory needles despairingly. "It seems so strange that you care to remember that which was surely a terrible life."

      "Much more so than you can know," answered the girl, coming over to her and drawing a velvet hassock to her side. "And, my dear, good, innocent little lady, just so long as you all try to persuade me that I should go out among young people of my own age, just so long must I be forced to think of how different my life has been to theirs. Some day they, too, might learn how different it has been, and resent my presence among them. I prefer not to run that risk. I might get to like some of them, and then it would hurt. Besides, the more I see of people since I came here, the more I feel that every one should remain with their own class in life."

      "But, Montana, that is not an American sentiment at all!" said Miss Seldon, with some surprise. "But even that idea should not exclude from refined circles. By birth you are a lady."

      The girl smiled bitterly. "You mean my mother was," she answered. "But she did not give me a gentleman for a father; and I don't believe the parents of any of those lovely girls we meet would like them to know the daughter of such a man, if they knew it. Now, do you understand how I feel about myself and this social question?"

      "You are foolishly conscientious and morbid," exclaimed the older lady. "I declare, Montana, I don't know what to do with you. People like you--you are very clever, you have youth, wealth, and beauty--yes, the last, too! yet you shut yourself up here like a young nun. Only the theaters and the art galleries will you visit--never a person--not even Margaret."

      "Not even Margaret," repeated the girl; "and that is the crowning sin in your eyes, isn't it? Well, I don't blame you, for she is very lovely; and how much she thinks of you!"

      "Yes!" sighed the little lady. "Mrs. Haydon is a woman of very decided character, but not at all given to loving demonstrations to children. Long ago, when we lived closer, little Margie would come to me daily to be kissed and petted. Max was only a boy then, and they were great companions."

      "Yes; and if he had been sensible, he would have fallen in love with her and made her Mrs. Lyster, instead of knocking around Western mining towns, and making queer friends," said the girl, smiling at the old lady's astonished face. "She is just the sort of girl to suit him."

      "My dear," she said, solemnly, "do you really care for him a particle?"

      "Who--Max? Of course I do. He is the best fellow I know, and was so good to me out there in the wilderness. There was no one out there to compare me with, so I suppose I loomed up big when compared with the average squaw. But everything is different here. I did not know how different. I know now, however, and I won't let him go on making a mistake."

      "Oh, Montana!" cried the little lady, pleadingly.

      Just then a maid entered with two cards, at which she glanced with a dismay that was comical.

      "Margaret and Max! Why, is it not strange they should call at the same time, and at a time when--"

      "When I was pairing them off so nicely, without their knowledge," added the girl. "Have them come up here, won't you? It is so much more cozy than that very elegant parlor. And I always feel as if poor Max had been turned out of his home since I came."

      So they came to the little sitting room--pretty, dark-eyed Margaret, with her faultless manners and her real fondness for Miss Seldon, whom she kissed three times.

      "For I have not seen you for three days," she explained, "and those two are back numbers." Then she turned to 'Tana and eyed her admiringly as they clasped hands.

      "You look as though you had stepped from a picture of classic Greek," she declared. "Where in that pretty curly head of yours do you find the ideas for those artistic arrangements of form and color? You are an artist, Montana, and you don't know it."

      "I will begin to believe it if people keep telling me so."

      "Who else has told you?" asked Lyster, and she laughed at him.

      "Not you," she replied; "at least not since you teased me about the clay Indians I made on the shores of the Kootenai. But some one else has told me--Mr. Roden."

      "Roden, the sculptor! But how does he know?"

      She glanced from one face to the other, and sighed with a serio-comic expression. "I might as well confess," she said, at last. "I am so glad you are here, Miss Margaret, for I may need an advocate. I have been working two hours a day in Mr. Roden's studio for over a month."

      "Montana!" gasped Miss Seldon, "but--how--when?"

      "Before you were awake in the morning," she said, and looked from one to the other of their blank faces. "You look as if it were a shock, instead of a surprise," she added. "I did not tell you at first, as it would seem only a whim. But he has told me I have reason for the whim, and that I should continue. So--I think I shall."

      "But, my child--for you are a child, after all--don't you know it is a very strange thing for a girl to go alone like that, and--and--Oh, dear! Max, can't you tell her?"

      But Max did not. There was a slight wrinkle between his brows, but she saw it and smiled.

      "You can't scold me, though, can you?" she asked. "That is right, for it would be no use. I know you would say that in your set it would not be proper for a girl to do such independent things. But you see, I do not belong to any set. I have just been telling this dear little lady, who is trying to look stern, some of the reasons why society life and I can never agree. But I have found several reasons why Art life and I should agree perfectly. I like the freedom of it--the study of it. And, even if I never accomplish much, I shall at least have tried my best."

      "But, Montana, it is not as though you had to learn such things," pleaded Miss Seldon. "You have plenty of money."

      "Oh, money--money! But I have found there are a few things in this world money can not buy. Art study, little as I have attempted, has taught me that."

      Lyster came over and sat beside her by the window.

      "'Tana," he said, and looked at her with kindly directness, "can the Art study give you that which you crave, and which money can not buy?"

      Her eyes fell to the floor. She could not but feel sorry to go against his wishes; and yet--

      "No, it can not, entirely," she said, at last. "But it is all the substitute I know of, and, maybe, after a while, it will satisfy me."

      Miss Seldon took Margaret from the room on some pretext, and Lyster rose and walked across to the other window. He was evidently much troubled or annoyed.

      "Then you are not satisfied?" he asked. "The life that seemed possible to you, when out there in camp, is impossible to you now."

      "Oh, Max! don't be angry--don't. Everything was all wrong out there. You were sorry for me out there; you thought me different from what I am. I could never be the sort of girl you should marry--not like Margaret--"

      "Margaret!" СКАЧАТЬ