"
"She is about to pay us a visit. Yes, it's a woman, a bundle of bones,
dust and alpaca crowned with a sombrero. A book-agent, I swear. Go and
tell her we have never learned to read."
I demurred. Finally we spun a dollar to decide upon which of us lay
the brutal duty of turning away the stranger within our gates. Fortune
frowned on me, and I rose reluctantly from my chair.
"Air you the hired man?" said the woman in the buggy, as I looked
askance into her face.
"I work here," I replied, "for my board--which is not of the best."
"Ye seem kinder thin. Say--air the lords to home?"
"The lords?"
"Yes, the lords. They tole me back ther," she jerked her head in the
direction of the village, "that two English lords owned a big cattle-
ranch right here; an' I thought, mebbee, that they'd like ter see--
me."
A pathetic accent of doubt quavered upon the personal pronoun.
"Ye kin tell 'em," she continued, "that I'm here. Yes, sir, I'm a
book-agent, an' my book will interest them--sure."
Her eyes, soft blue eyes, bespoke hope; her lips quivered with tell-
tale anxiety. Something inharmonious about the little woman, a queer
lack of adjustment between voice and mouth, struck me as singular, but
not unpleasing.
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