"But you haven't told us who Kitty was," interrupted the blue parasol. "Was she light or dark?"--"his wife?"--"he wouldn't have dared!"--"a Texan wife?" and Mrs. Brogden looked very grave at the possibilities the flying questions aroused. "No, she wasn't his wife; only the Yankee schoolmistress of La Junta. I never saw her. She must have been an angel, though, from his description; so I will leave the details for your acquaintance hereafter, Miss Brogden;" which outrageous flattery was received with contemptuous silence. "She lived at Junta, and would canter over on Saturdays to Trocalara, the Texan's ranch, to teach his herdsmen's families. His partner, Parker, and he had a large cattle-ranch not far from the Mexican frontier, and Kitty could not have lived on a bed of roses, I fancy. Raids, stampedes and other border pleasantries were constantly occurring. I remember we thought him too gentle at first to have really hailed from the Plains; but one night, when Hamilton remonstrated with a man who, I believe, had allowed himself to get in that state described by the sailors as 'three sheets in the wind, and the fourth fluttering,' and was met with rather an uncivil reply, the Texan shut the offender up like a jack-knife with his heavy grip and the intimation that 'he proposed to settle the Bible-man's scores.' "He grew quite intimate with Hamilton and me, and proved a delightful companion. He would quote readily from many of the later poets, and knew whole pages of Milton and Shakespeare by heart. Kitty had taught him these, he said, after she married Parker and came to live with him. "'She made us read history-books first,' he said--'many, many volumes--but we soon got to like them better than anything else. The poetry _she_ read to us; and so we never went to the shows in Junta after she came. Kitty has a good husband, as fine a fellow as ever lassoed a steer, but she is too pure for Junta. Parker loves her, and I love her too, but both of us do not make up for her Eastern comforts. And so last year, as we made a good herd and there were no raids to speak of, I came to New York to get a few luxuries for her. She wrote me then to go to Paris and see the Exposition; so I went because I thought she knew best, and that if I had seen the world a little I should be nearer to her, and it would not be quite so hard for her out there. And now she is ill, and--I am here!' "He turned impatiently away to ask the quartermaster what we were doing by the last log. The speed appeared to satisfy him, for he sat quietly down again and told us how it was that Kitty had come to live with them.