It was New-Year's day--though the light had not yet dawned before the sufferer was comfortably lodged at the Yedral Ranch, and Hetty, as well as the Sutton family, slept later into the morning than usual. The sun had risen as serenely cloudless as though no storm had passed through the land but yesternight; and Father Sutton, thinking he was the first one up, was surprised to encounter Hetty with Johnny, her new-found cavalier. He hailed her in his unceremonious fashion: "I'm glad to see you up bright and early, gal--make a good farmer's wife some day. Did you come down this way to live on a ranch?" "No, sir; I came to teach school. Your name is among those of the gentlemen who engaged me." "The ----! Are you the new school-marm? Then you're Miss----" "Hetty Dunlap is my name." He held out both hands. "A happy New-Year to ye, Hetty Dunlap--and happy it'll be for all of us, I'm thinking; for a gal that's got so much pluck as you is sure to know something about teachin' school. Here, Johnny, how d'ye like your teacher?" Now, Johnny had drawn back with some slight manifestation of disfavor when Hetty's true character came to light. But she laid her hand on his shoulder in her shy yet frank manner, and said quickly: "I had already selected Johnny as a sort of assistant disciplinarian. I am so little that I shall want some one who is tall and strong to give me countenance;" which at once restored the harmony between them. They went in to breakfast together, during which meal it was decided by Father Sutton that Hetty was to live in his family, though "the Price's" was the place where, until now, the teachers had made their home, being nearest to the school. "But then," said the old man, "if the Rancho Yedral can't afford a mustang for such a brave little rider every day of the year, then I'll give it up;" and he slapped his hat on and left the house. "Yes," Frank commented rather timidly, "you are brave--a perfect heroine. And yet you are so very small." She was standing in just the spot where he had brushed the hair out of her face last night, and perhaps his words were an apology. "True," she assented, "I am small; not much taller than my sister's oldest girl, and she is only twelve." "You have a sister?" "Yes, in the city; and she has six children." Her voice was raised a little, her nut-brown eyes looked into his with an unconscious appeal for sympathy, and her delicate nostrils quivered as in terror--which the bare recollection of the little heathens seemed to inspire her with. "And did you live at her house?--have you neither father nor mother living?" "Neither. How happy you must be--you have so kind a father and so good a mother--"