Ma never had any trouble putting in the whole day in some such manner as this; evening came all too soon, as a matter of fact. Then it was that she bade good-by to her faithful subjects and prepared once more to fare forth and mingle, in the cunning guise of an old woman, with the followers of the false and lying Duke of Dallas. But courage! Patience! The day of reckoning was at hand when she would come into her own and the world would recognize her as the wronged but rightful Princess Pensacola. Thus would Ma Briskow spend one morning. Another perhaps she would be an altogether different character, but always she was young and beautiful and full of grace, and only when it came time to go did she assume the disguise of an aged, wrinkled, bent old woman. Sometimes she ran miles and miles at a stretch, darting, springing like a fawn, rushing through the soft, green leaves, leaping rock and rill, her laughter echoing, her bare limbs flashing, her gold hair streaming, her scanty silken draperies whipped to shreds behind her by the very swiftness of her going. Oh, the ecstasy of that! The excitement! Of course Ma did not actually run. Neither did her bare limbs flash--being incased in flannels. And her hair was not gold. It was gray, what little there was of it. No, she ambled a bit, perhaps, where the grass was short and the ground smooth, then she stood still, closed her eyes, and ran and leaped and swayed and darted--with her arms. Anybody can do it. At other times she defied gravitation, a secret accomplishment all her own, which she manifested in this wise. She would begin to jump, higher and higher, and the higher she jumped the lighter she became, until finally she weighed no more than a thistledown, and the effort of leaping became a pure joy and an exhilaration. Having attained this perfect state of buoyancy, she would set out upon wonderful journeys, springing lightly as far as it pleased her to spring, soaring gracefully over obstacles, and deriving a delirious pleasure from the sensation. One cannot appreciate the enjoyment to be had from this method of locomotion without trying it. And always when Ma came back to earth and opened her eyes there were the great smiling mountains, the clear, clean waters foaming over the rocks, and underfoot was the cool, green grass, not that hot, hard 'dobe clay she had always known. Trees, too! Beautiful whispering trees, with smooth leaves instead of burrs and spines and stickers. Nor was there the faintest choking smell of dust; no sand blowing up her nose and smarting her eyes. Ma Briskow had never dreamed that the world was so clean. She blessed God for making oil to lie in the rocks of the earth, and she prayed that none of "them hotel people" would discover her retreat. But, of course, somebody did discover it. Mr. Delamater, the dancing instructor, for one, stumbled upon it while Ma Briskow was in the midst of one of her imaginary games, and he reported his discovery to the day clerk.