“You said he wouldn’t be fit for a lady for three years,” she began, and then broke off—“but then I’m not a lady. I suppose I’m just one of the youngsters. I can’t play decently on the piano, or—speak good Spanish—or any of those things. Maybe I never will.” Uncle Hank looked at her in blank amazement. When he spoke there was sort of a reluctance in his voice. “The—er—what I wanted to say to you just now has got something to do with that—” She looked up at him, a little startled. “—That matter of education, I mean. Colonel Marchbanks rode in pretty soon after you left the pasture. Brought that boy of his with him; made some kind of a talk about Fayte having been mistaken in the day he wanted them cows moved, but that he’d give the boy orders to meet him here and to help him and—well, Pettie, what is a man to say? Best we can do is to forget that we had any suspicions. He’s gone on now to Amarillo—to be back here in about a week.” “Yes?” Hilda had dropped her head once more; she did not raise it now. After a short pause, in which Hank regarded anxiously the bit of her face which he could see, he went on: “The colonel’s taken a great liking to you, Pettie. He praised you high.” This was Uncle Hank’s medicine for her depression. She managed a smile. But he was not done. The tone in which he proceeded suggested careful restraint. He did not look at her. “Marchbanks has asked for you to go and stay at his ranch for a year—or as much longer as we’re willing to have you—and study under a good teacher with his daughter, Maybelle. Course, I wasn’t making any such arrangements as that; but I talked it over with him—on a business basis, you know. We settled what your board would be and what our share of the teacher’s pay ought to come to—if you went.” Every line in Hilda’s figure had begun to change. She fetched a long breath. The dusty feet were drawn back under her; slowly the drooping shoulders straightened; her head lifted; in the eyes that sought the old man’s face light was growing. “Oh,” she breathed—“oh, Uncle Hank!” Hank had expected at least some reluctance on his girl’s part to leave the ranch. She’d had solid schooling, gone flying through the grammar grades, was well grounded in all the essentials now. To every proposition for further education she’d always said that she expected to be a ranchwoman, and, beyond what she had already, reading would have to take the place of schooling. But now, as he studied the tremulous face, he saw there would be a different answer, and he said quietly: “That teacher’s a college graduate—the best to be had. She could get you ready for any college in the country, I reckon.” Hilda lowered her eyes hastily. “I—I liked Maybelle,” she said, speaking very low. “Isn’t it—a pretty name—Uncle Hank?” “Right nice,” agreed Hank, suppressing a twinge—his girl, like any other girl, was looking for young companionship; that’s what made her eager for the New Mexico trip, and change.