But her gentle humor always
served her at such moments. And there was always the lukewarm
consolation that there was no other woman who had even a similar claim.
Therefore she hugged her secret to herself, and only gazed upon it in
such moments of happy dreaming as the present.
And just now they were happy moments. How could it be otherwise in a
girl so healthy, and with such a depth of human feeling and with such a
capacity for sheer enjoyment of the simple pleasures which came her
way? What an evening yet confronted her in this brief week of holiday
from the claims of the green-brown plains of summer. She must be ready
at seven o'clock for the reception at the City Hall. She had a new
gown for that particular event, which had, amongst others, been bought
in New York. It had cost one hundred and thirty dollars, an
unthinkable price it had seemed, but dismissed as something too paltry
to be considered by the open-handed ranchman whom she claimed as father.
She was to assist Jeff and her father in receiving the guests, who
would represent all the heads of their cattle world, and their friends,
and their wives, and their daughters.
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