"He sthayed to my place wan noight the last toime he come to his ranch, and thot's how I know about his religious belafes of hisself. Afther he had lift, Oi flopped on my knaze and t'anked the Saints and the Good Lard that thar wasn't but wan real good and holy man in Arizony so long as I was in the cattle raising business." In spite of her anxiety, Nell's laughter rang through the room, as she pictured the pompous Mr. Brander thumping his "craw." The man was very wealthy, and only visited his ranch at intervals, but was so rabidly anti-Catholic that he never missed any opportunity to harangue on the topic, and he allowed no Mexicans employed on his ranch, because of their religion. "It seems pitiful that we need rains so badly here, while the farmers in the East are complaining of too much," Nell said, unable to avoid the topic that was so vital to them all. "Oi'm siventy-foive years ould, Misthress Thraynor, and Oi've found things ginerally works that way. Boy-the-boy, have yez iver been to Nye Yark?" "I was born there and lived there with my parents till they died, then the money went and I worked, Paddy. I had to earn enough for Jamie and myself, you see. There was no one to help us. You get frightened when you know you are only one in the four millions people around you." "The nixt toime yez go to Nye Yark," said Paddy, "there's a little restyrant yez want to be afther thryin'. Oi disremember the name of the strate yez sthart from, but ony way, yez go tin strates to the roight, thin thray strates to the lift, and thin yez kape straight on till yez say the place, and there yez are. Yez can't miss it. Yez can git the best male yez iver ate in your loife," he leaned over and dropped his voice more confidentially, "and they only charge tin cints!" In order to hide the twitching corners of her mouth, as she conjured up a vision of turning cannibal and devouring "the best male yez iver ate in your loife," Nell moved to the window and stood picking dead leaves from a common geranium growing in a crude window box on the inner ledge formed by the thick adobe walls of the house. "It's growing beautifully, Paddy," she said to the old man, "and Jamie and I love to watch it. Only, I hate to have you give it up yourself after you have had it so long. It's a beautiful geranium." "Oh, well," Paddy replied carelessly, waving his hand with the pipe, "I was away from the house so much that half the toime I'd fergit to wather it. It's a long ways betther since you took care of it. Only, yez remimber, yez mustn't give it away to anybody ilse. Yez see, it belonged to the ould Dootch woman I married, and she thought a lot of it. Oi wouldn't give it to any wan ilse but you and Jamie."