“You see,” he explained, simply, after a lengthy and, as it seemed to Miss Arnold, a somewhat fruitless dissertation on the splendid copy of the “Rubaiyat” lying before them--“you see I don’t know much about these things. Never hed no chance. But Ellen knows, so what’s the use of my knowin’? She can put her knowledge to use; but, Lord! I couldn’t if I hed it. “You see it was like this,” he continued, cheerfully, turning to Miss Arnold, while the girl at his side raised her head for an instant and uttered a low exclamation of protest. “We lived out West--in a minin’ camp in Colorado--Bowlder Bluff wuz its name. Awfully lonesome place. No schools--nothin’, jest the store--my store--an’ the mines not fur off. Ellen wuz about twelve then”--he turned inquiringly to the girl, but she would not look up--“about twelve,” he continued, after a slight pause, and another gentle caress of the brown hair; “an’ I hedn’t never given a thought to wimmen’s eddication, an’ Ellen here wuz jest growin’ up not knowin’ a thing--except how I loved her an’ couldn’t bear her out of my sight” (with another caress), “when one day there came to ther camp a college chap. He wuz an English chap, an’ he wuz hard-up. But he wuz a gentleman an’ he’d been to a college--Oxford wuz the name--an’ he took a heap of notice of Ellen, an’ said she wuz mighty smart--yes, Ellen, even then we knew you wuz smart--an’ that she ought to have schoolin’ an’ not run aroun’ the camp any more. At first I didn’t pay no attention to him. But by an’ by his views did seem mighty sensible, an’ he kep’ naggin at me. He used to talk to me about it continual, an’ at night we’d sit out under the pines and talk--he with a fur-away sort of look in his eyes an’ the smoke curlin’ up from his pipe--an’ he’d tell me what eddication meant to wimmen--independence an’ happiness an’ all that, an’ he insisted fur Ellen to go to a good school. He said there wuz big colleges fur wimmen just like there wuz fur men, an’ that she ought to have a chance an’ go to one. “An’ then he would read us a lot of stuff of evenin’s--specially poetry. Shelley in particular. And yet another chap, almost better’n Shelley. Keats wuz his name. P’rhaps you’ve read some of his poetry?” he inquired, turning politely to Miss Arnold. Something in her throat kept her from speaking, so she only lowered her head and looked away from the drawn, averted face of the girl before her. “He wuz great! All about gods an’ goddesses an’ things one don’t know much about; but then, as I take it, poetry always seems a little fur off, so it wuz kind of natural. But Shelley wuz our favorite. He used to read us somethin’ about the wind. Regularly fine--jest sturred us up, I can tell you. We knew what storms an’ dead leaves an’ ‘black rain an’ fire an’ hail’ wuz out on them lonesome mountains. An’ sometimes he’d read us other things, stories from magazines, an’ books, but it kind of made me feel lonesomer than ever.