“How well they dance together!” said Mrs. Nixon to Mrs. Bruce complacently. “Yes,” returned the latter. “Mr. Nixon being shorter is a better height for her than Irving.” “Robert is quite tall enough,” said Mrs. Nixon. “Yes, for Miss Maynard,” returned Mrs. Bruce. Neither of them had slept as yet, and their sitting together at all had a savor of reckless daring. Betsy was deeply engaged at the counter where pictures and postal-cards were sold. “I don’t know,” she thought, “as it would be anything out of the way if I should get that whole set o’ postal cards and send ’em to Hiram. Poor soul, he can’t travel any, and they’d sort o’ illustrate my talk if I ever told him anything about the trip.” As she meditated thus, Betsy’s slow color rose, for her New England conscience remarked rather tartly that this plan for giving pleasure to her patient admirer was not without ulterior motives, and pretense was useless. “Don’t I know,” she mused defensively, “that it would just make Hiram’s life over to have the child in his house? Old Mrs. Bachelder would like nothin’ better than to move all her traps over instead of comin’ by the day.” All of which goes to show that Clever Betsy’s wits were still busy with Rosalie’s problem, and that she desired to settle it without committing herself to a surrender to the able seaman. “As for postal cards, I guess I wouldn’t have grudged Hiram that much pleasure if Rosalie Vincent had never come to the Yellowstone; and he and I—I mean he and Rosalie can enjoy lookin’ at ’em evenin’s.” Upon which, with conscious innocence and a withering disregard of the presumptuous inner voice, Betsy put down her money and took the set of cards in its neat case. As she did so, Mr. Derwent sauntered up to the stand; the smile which always rested more in his eyes than on his lips was evident as he noticed Betsy’s concentrated interest. “Finding some pretty things?” he asked. She nodded vigorously. Mr. Derwent would have been surprised to know how constantly his image had held possession of this woman’s thoughts since yesterday afternoon. Hiram Salter was a bird in the bush, and no matter how wary, Betsy felt that she could lure him—yes, upstart conscience, even without the aid of postal cards!—to come to her and eat out of her hand; but Mr. Derwent was the bird already in that hand so far as physical neighborhood was concerned. She had wondered through many hours how she could compass a conversation with the deaf gentleman which others should not overhear. Betsy looked wildly around for a likely spot for a vociferous tête-à-tête. There was a corridor which ran out of the large office in each direction, and from which opened the first-floor bedrooms.