Elizabeth was impressionable enough to feel the full significance of such hints and side-thrusts as were cautiously administered to her. She was quite aware that she and her father were totally at odds on the main point at issue, that he had as yet no intention of sharing his solitude with her for any length of time. As the days went by she perceived something else. She was not long in discovering that he was extremely poor, and she became aware in some indefinable wise that he held existence very cheap. Had her penetration been guided by a form of experience which she happily lacked, she might have suspected still another factor in the situation which had an unacknowledged influence upon Stanwood's attitude. Meanwhile their relation continued to be a friendly one. They were, in fact, peculiarly congenial, and they could not well live together without discovering it. They rode together, they cooked together, they set up a target, and had famous shooting-matches. Elizabeth learned to milk the cows and make butter, to saddle her bronco and mount him from the ground. They taught the pups tricks, they tamed a family of prairie-dogs, they had a plan for painting the windmill. By the end of a week Stanwood was in such good humor, that he made a marked concession. One of the glowing, glimmering sunsets they both delighted in was going on, beautifying the prairie as warmly as the sky. Stanwood came from the shed where he had been feeding the horses, and found his visitor seated in the doorway. He stood observing her critically for a few moments. She made an attractive picture there in the warm sunset light. Before he could check himself he found himself wishing that her mother could see her. Ah! If her mother were here too, it would be almost worth while to begin life over again. The girl, unconscious of his scrutiny, sat gazing at the view he loved. As he watched her tranquil happy face he felt reconciled and softened. Her hands lay palm downward on her lap. They were shapely hands, large and generous; a good deal tanned and freckled now. There was something about them which he had not noticed before; and almost involuntarily his thoughts got themselves spoken. "Do you know, Elizabeth, your _thumbs_ are like your mother's!" Elizabeth felt that it was a concession, but she had learned wisdom. She did not turn her eyes from the range, and she only said quietly, "I am glad of that, papa." Emboldened by the consciousness of her own discretion, she ventured, later in the evening, to broach a subject fraught with risks. Having armed herself with a piece of embroidery, and placed the lamp between herself and the object of her diplomacy, she remarked in a casual manner: "I suppose, papa, that Uncle Nicholas has told you how rich we are." "Nick wrote me with his usual consciousness of virtue that his investments for you had turned out well." "Our income is twice what it was ten years ago."