“O, Aunt Madeleine is a dear. But she is a trying paradox. You see, she wants to bring me up—and out—properly. But she likes to play at being radical, and sometimes I have to remind her that she is too reckless with me. She has spasms of conservative severity that really are very funny. Then her rigor relents and she takes it to heart if I don’t do something rampant. When she is in this mood she packs me off somewhere by myself. ‘You have too much of me,’ she says. That was how I came to go out on the Texas ranch last year. Uncle Billy Sandrix had expected both of us to come, and you should have seen him stare when I rode up to the ranch house on a crazy Indian pony, a week before he was to come and meet us at Fort Worth. ‘What the devil,’ he said,—and that was all that he could say. I had a refulgent time there. The next evening, while Uncle Billy was telling me about one of his horses, a young fellow rode up and asked if he might stop there. Uncle Billy said ‘Certainly.’ That was just like Uncle Billy. The young man stabled his horse, and coming over to Uncle Billy, asked, ‘Where shall I sleep?’ Something in the way he said it must have riled Uncle Billy, or a broad English accent may have struck his funny side. Anyway, he said, ‘Why, I don’t care. This pasture has only twenty thousand acres. It’s the smallest in the outfit, but you are welcome to sleeping room anywhere.’ This was just like Uncle Billy, too. The young man nodded and turned away; and we both thought he had been seriously offended. Presently Uncle Billy went out to look for him. But he was not to be seen. The next morning we found that the stranger had slept in the open, had harnessed at daylight and ridden away, leaving his thanks with one of the men. This hurt Uncle Billy and he tore after the stranger, ran him down in an hour, trotted him back, told him he had lots of sand, and wouldn’t let him go for two weeks. It turned out that the young man was the son of an English peer, who had run away from home. He didn’t tell me that until the end of the second week.” “Yes; I daresay that at the end of the second week he was telling you everything.” “Well, he was a lovely fellow, and really a very good rider for an Englishman. Even Uncle Billy liked his riding. I met him afterward in London, and he was very nice. It was delicious to hear him give me advice.” “Advice?”