“I was awfully sorry to learn from your letter that you were so lonely, and had no young friends. But your coming over to the Alamositas will make that all right. They say Maybelle’s a very nice girl, and I hear they have a great deal of young company at the ranch; only, little girl as you are, I’m glad Fayte Marchbanks isn’t at home now, or likely to be back, it seems, while you are there. He’s not the sort of fellow for you to make a friend of.” That was about all. He hadn’t thought worth while to say anything about the books she wanted to discuss with him. He might have written about them. They could have corresponded while she was at the Alamositas, anyhow. She drew her wounded girl’s pride about her with the declaration that she would never mention Pearse again to any one, never write to him again nor make any effort to see him. Then she thought miserably that this was what he had advised her to do in the letter. Her heart sank to the ultimate zero. Meantime Hank had his own worries. A year’s stay on a big, prosperous ranch like the Alamositas, within easy distance of more than one small New Mexican town—and he knew well how it went with young folks in a ranching community, where it is out of the question to draw any hard-and-fast social line. Quick courtships—even the ill-considered marriages of boys and girls who were scarcely more than children—those were the things that came about under such an arrangement. He was full of anxiety for his girl; she must not be sent unwarned into that sort of thing. He finally mustered up courage to go to Miss Valeria and say that, under the circumstances, he felt she ought to talk to Hilda about “goin’ with the boys” and such things before they let her leave for New Mexico. The little lady listened to him with a bewildered air, which finally gave way to an embarrassed laugh. When he’d said his say, she dismissed the whole matter airily with: “But, Mr. Pearsall, the child isn’t ‘out’ yet.” “No,” agreed Hank seriously, “but she’s a-goin’ out to-morrow, when Marchbanks comes through for her.” “You don’t understand me,” Miss Val said. “You don’t get my meaning. At home, in New York, we used that expression—” She broke off, drew her brows a little, and the bright black eyes behind the glasses studied the ranch boss a moment before she went on: “Hilda’s a schoolgirl—she goes to Mr. Marchbanks’ as a schoolgirl. She’s not out in society. Naturally, she won’t be thinking of any of those matters you mention. I certainly shouldn’t bring them up in talking to her—it might put foolish ideas into her head.” “You won’t take it on you to speak to her?” Hank asked.