“Why, a man I met in Montana,” said Elizabeth, wondering how much she ought to tell.

“A man you met in Montana!  Horrors!” exclaimed the now thoroughly aroused grandmother.  “Not that dreadful creature you ran away from?”

“O no!” said Elizabeth, smiling.  “Not that man.  A man who was very kind to me, and whom I like very much.”

So much the worse.  Immediate action was necessary.

“Well, Elizabeth,” said Madam Bailey in her stiffest tones, “I really do not care to have any of your Montana friends visit you.  You will have to excuse yourself.  It will lead to embarrassing entanglements.  You do not in the least realize your position in society.  It is all well enough to please your relatives, although I think you often overdo that.  You could just as well send them a present now and then, and please them more than to go yourself.  But as for any outsiders, it is impossible.  I draw the line there.”

“But grandmother——­”

“Don’t interrupt me, Elizabeth; I have something more to say.  I had word this morning from the steamship company.  They can give us our staterooms on the Deutschland on Saturday, and I have decided to take them.  I have telegraphed, and we shall leave here to-day for New York.  I have one or two matters of business I wish to attend to in New York.  We shall go to the Waldorf for a few days, and you will have more opportunity to see New York than you have had yet.  It will not be too warm to enjoy going about a little, I fancy; and a number of our friends are going to be at the Waldorf, too.  The Craigs sail on Saturday with us.  You will have young company on the voyage.”

Elizabeth’s heart sank lower than she had known it could go, and she grew white to the lips.  The observant grandmother decided that she had done well to be so prompt.  The man from Montana was by no means to be admitted.  She gave orders to that effect, unknown to Elizabeth.

The girl went slowly to her room.  All at once it had dawned upon her that she had not given her address to the man the night before, nor told him by so much as a word what were her circumstances.  An hour’s meditation brought her to the unpleasant decision that perhaps even now in this hard spot God was only hiding her from worse trouble.  Mr. George Benedict belonged to Geraldine Loring.  He had declared as much when he was in Montana.  It would not be well for her to renew the acquaintance.  Her heart told her by its great ache that she would be crushed under a friendship that could not be lasting.

Very sadly she sat down to write a note.

“My dear Friend,” she wrote on plain paper with no crest.  It was like her to choose that.  She would not flaunt her good fortune in his face.  She was a plain Montana girl to him, and so she would remain.

“My grandmother has been very ill, and is obliged to go away for her health.  Unexpectedly I find that we are to go to-day.