The ladies of Parowan did think--and they talked, as well. They had felt all along, they said, that Bill Dale's wife held herself above the rest of the town; though why she should was beyond their powers of imagination. Everybody knew she was Don Hunter's girl,--respectable enough, but nobody in particular, and certainly not rich. Don had made some money out of Parowan, but they still ate in the kitchen, and Mrs. Hunter didn't even keep a hired girl. And here was Doris, trailing silken gowns over the polished floors, the Persian rugs of the mansion on the hill, and speaking loftily of this servant and that servant--by their last names--and bewailing the hardships of living in Parowan and trying to entertain with no caterer in town and cut flowers a practical impossibility on short notice or if the trains happened to be late. The ladies of Parowan descended to the satisfying luxury of speaking their minds. Some of the minds harbored spite and malice and envy, at that, and the things they said were not pleasant. It was fortunate that the series of "at homes" which Doris had condescended to give to the ladies in Parowan ended with what Bill unfeelingly dubbed "Luella's party." Five afternoons had been devoted to that memorable series. Twenty-five women to an afternoon, and the house decorated differently each day, and the prizes for the card games real, costly trifles such as Mrs. Baker Cole and her set always gave. Parowan society would have been content with a china plate or a doily for first prize, even at the bridge table,--which was new to Parowan. Plain whist and five hundred were the games usually played by the ladies of Parowan, and Doris had overawed them, intimidated them even, with her "bridge tables" ever since her arrival. Her house-party from Santa Barbara and San Francisco, arriving in a private car, twittering through the "camp" for a week and departing as they had come, had impressed even the ex-governor's wife. There had been a grand, house-warming ball, and the very elect of Parowan had been permitted to attend it; but the house-party of wealthy strangers had held themselves a bit aloof, and one woman had been overheard to express her surprise and disappointment because the natives had neglected to appear in red shirts and high boots, with six-shooters dangling at their hips. Parowan hadn't quite forgiven that, even yet. But Doris had responded to the involuntary deference which Parowan showed to the wife of Bill Dale. She had glowed secretly with pride in the house Bill had built on the hillside. It was a beautiful house; even her critical eye could find no flaw in its design, in its perfect appointments. Bill had been building a dream into the house. Love had gone into it, and a wistful longing for a home that should dumbly express his love for Doris and for his child. Hope had gone into the building of that house; the hope that Doris would love it and would want to call it home.