All this happened four or five years ago, and to-day where do you suppose Royal Purcel is, and what do you suppose he is doing?  In Mr. Carr’s mills, learning to pick and buy wool?

Not he.  He is in Paris with Jimmy Barrows, studying hard, and supporting himself by making business illustrations for various newspapers.  It is humble work, but it serves for his support while he is preparing for higher things; and the “higher things” are not far off, for two or three of his sketches in oils have attracted the attention of the critics, and he has furnished a set of drawings for a child’s book that has been well paid for and well spoken of.  And Jimmy Barrows wrote home to Tom Lloyd the other day,—­

“Royal is going to be a howling success, as I always prophesied; but what a time your uncle and I had to persuade his family of this possibility, and to get him off from that wool-picking!  But I guess they began to believe we were right when this spoiled wool-picker wrote them last week that he’d paid the last cent of his indebtedness to Mr. Lloyd.  Houp-la!”

“‘A howling success’!  And it’s all through me,” laughed Elsie, as she read this portion of Jimmy’s letter; “for if I hadn’t eaten humble-pie, and run after Master Royal that morning, he would not have met Jimmy Barrows, and might have been wool-picking to this day.  Yes; it’s all through me and my humble-pie.  Houp-la!”

MAJOR MOLLY’S CHRISTMAS PROMISE.

CHAPTER I.

“Never had a Christmas present?”

“No, never.”

“Why, it’s just dreadful!  Well, there’s one thing,—­you shall have one this year, you dear thing!” and Molly Elliston flung down the Christmas muffler she was knitting, and stared at her visitor, as if she could scarcely believe what she had just confessed to her.  The visitor laughed, showing a beautiful row of small white teeth as she did so.  She was a charming little maiden of twelve or thirteen, this visitor,—­a charming little maiden with the darkest of dark hair that hung in a thick shining braid tied at the end with a broad red ribbon.  Molly Elliston thought she was a beauty, as she looked at her dimpled smiling face,—­a beauty, though she was an Indian.  Yes, this charming little maiden was an Indian, belonging to what was once a great and powerful tribe.  When, three years ago, Molly Elliston had come out to the far Northwest with her mother to join her father on his ranch, she had thought she should never feel anything but aversion to an Indian.  Molly was then seven years old, and had always lived at some military post, for her father had been an army officer until the three years before, when he had given up his commission to enter into partnership with his brother upon a sheep and cattle ranch.  A few miles from this ranch was an Indian reservation.  The tribe that occupied it had for a long time been quite friendly with white people, and were therefore not altogether unwelcome neighbors to the Ellistons.  Molly thought they were very welcome, indeed, when one day, in the third summer of her ranch life, she made the acquaintance of this pretty Wallula, who was not only pretty, but very intelligent, and of a loving disposition that responded gladly to Molly’s friendly advances.