"Hope, I must ask you not to say impertinent things to your father. You no doubt meant to be witty, but you were none the less rude. Why do you allow her to say such things to you, James? You have succeeded in spoiling her completely. Now if _I_ had been allowed to send her away to school she would have grown up with better manners." Hathaway passed his cup to be refilled, making no answer to his wife's outburst. Perhaps he had learned in his years of experience that the less said the better. At any rate he made no effort to defend his daughter--his only child, and dear to him, too. If she had expected that he would defend her it was only for a passing instant, then she returned to her natural gravity. Her face had few expressions. Its chief charm lay in its unchanging immobility, its utter quiet, behind which gleamed something of the girl's soul. When her rare smile came, lighting it up wonderfully, she was irresistible--in her anger, magnificent. Ordinarily she would not have been noticed at first glance, except, perhaps, for the exceptionally fine poise of her strong, slim body. She was a true daughter of the West, tanned almost as brown as an Indian maid, and easily might have passed for a half-breed, with her blue-black eyes and hair of the darkest brown. But if she had Indian blood she did not know it. Her mother, during the season, a flitting butterfly of New York society, a Daughter of the Revolution by half a dozen lines of descent, would have been horrified at the mere thought. The girl herself would not have cared had she been born and raised in an Indian camp. She had what Mrs. Hathaway termed queer ideas, due, as she always took occasion to explain to her friends who visited the ranch, to the uncivilized life that she had insisted upon living. Hope had been obstinate in refusing to leave the ranch. Threats and punishments were unavailing. When a young child she had resolved never to go away to school, and had set her small foot down so firmly that her mother was obliged to yield. Hathaway was secretly glad of this, for the ranch was home to him, and he would not leave it for any length of time. The little girl was great company to him, for his wife was away months at a time, preferring the gayety of her New York home to the quiet, isolated ranch on the prairie. Some people were unkind enough to say that it was a relief to Hathaway to have the place to himself, and certain it is that he never made any objections to the arrangement. Their only child, Hope, was educated on the ranch by the best instructors procurable, and readily acquired all the education that was necessary to her happiness.