Then both laughed a little, perhaps to conceal the faint constraint that was upon them, for a meeting between former comrades has its difficulties when one is a man and the other a woman, and the bond between them has not been defined. "I came in on business a day or two ago," said the man. "Ran round to check some packages. I'm going back again to-morrow." "Well," said the girl, "I was in the city, and came here to meet Flo Schuyler and her sister. They'll be in at four." The man looked at his watch. "That gives us 'most fifteen minutes, but it's not going to be enough. We'll lose none of it. What about the singing?" Hetty Torrance flushed a trifle. "Larry," she said, "you are quite sure you don't know?" The man appeared embarrassed, and there was a trace of gravity in his smile. "Your father told me a little; but I haven't seen him so often of late. Any way, I would sooner you told me." "Then," said the girl, with the faintest of quivers in her voice, "the folks who understand good music don't care to hear me." There was incredulity, which pleased his companion, in the man's face, but his voice vaguely suggested contentment. "That is just what they can't do," he said decisively. "You sing most divinely." "There is a good deal you and the boys at Cedar don't know, Larry. Any way, lots of people sing better than I do, but I should be angry with you if I thought you were pleased." The man smiled gravely. "That would hurt. I'm sorry for you, Hetty; but again I'm glad. Now there's nothing to keep you in the city, you'll come back to us. You belong to the prairie, and it's a better place than this." He spoke at an opportune moment. Since her cherished ambition had failed her, Hetty Torrance had grown a trifle tired of the city and the round of pleasure that must be entered into strenuously, and there were times when, looking back in reverie, she saw the great silent prairie roll back under the red sunrise into the east, and fade, vast, solemn, and restful, a cool land of shadow, when the first pale stars came out. Then she longed for the jingle of the bridles and the drumming of the hoofs, and felt once more the rush of the gallop stir her blood. But this was what she would not show, and her eyes twinkled a trifle maliciously. "Well, I don't quite know," she said. "There is always one thing left to most of us." She saw the man wince ever so slightly, and was pleased at it; but he was, as she had once told him in the old days, grit all through, and he smiled a little. "Of course!" he said. "Still, the trouble is that there are very few of us good enough for you. But you will come back for a little?" Miss Torrance would not commit herself. "How are they getting along at the Range?" "Doesn't your father write you?" "Yes," said the girl, colouring a trifle. "I had a letter from him a few days ago, but he seldom mentioned what he was doing, and I want you to tell me about him."