She turned and led the way down the wide, deep hall and into the living-room, a chamber which boldly defied one to remember that he was still upon the rim of the desert.  In one swift glance the newcomer to San Juan was offered a picture in which the tall, carelessly clad form of the sheriff became incongruous; she wondered that he remained at his ease as he so obviously did.  Yonder was a grand piano, a silver chased vase upon a wall bracket over it holding three long-stemmed, red roses; a heavy, massive-topped table strewn comfortably and invitingly with books and magazines; an exquisite rug and one painting upon the far wall, an original seascape suggestive of Waugh at his best; excellent leather-upholstered chairs luxuriously inviting, and at once homelike and rich.  Just rising from one of these chairs drawn up to the table reading-lamp, a book still in his hand, was Mr. Engle, while Mrs. Engle, as fair as her daughter, just beginning to grow stout in lavendar, came forward smilingly.

“Back again, Roddy?” She gave him a plump hand, patted his lean brown fingers after her motherly fashion, and came to where the girl had stopped just within the door.

“Virginia Page, aren’t you?  As if any one in the world would have to tell me who you were!  You are your mother all over, child; did you know it?  Oh, kiss me, kiss me, my dear, for your mother’s sake, and save your hand-shakes for strangers.”

Virginia, taken utterly by surprise as Mrs. Engle’s arms closed warmly about her, grew rosy with pleasure; the dreary loneliness of a long day was gone with a kiss and a hug.

“I didn’t know . . . .” she began haltingly, only to be cut short by Mrs. Engle crying to her husband: 

“It’s Virginia Page, John.  Wouldn’t you have known her anywhere?”

John Engle, courteous, urbane, a pleasant-featured man with grave, kindly eyes and a rather large, firm-lipped mouth nodded to Norton and gave Virginia his hand cordially.

“I must be satisfied with a hand-shake, Miss Page,” he said in a deep, pleasant voice, “but I refuse to be a mere stranger.  We are immensely glad to have you with us. . . .  Mother, can’t you see we have most thoroughly mystified her; swooping down on her like this without giving her an inkling of how and why we expected her?”

Roderick Norton and Florrie Engle had drawn a little apart; Virginia, with her back to them during the greeting of Mrs. and Mr. Engle, had no way of knowing whether the withdrawal had been by mutually spontaneous desire or whether the initiative had been the sheriff’s or Miss Engle’s.  Not that it mattered or concerned her in any slightest particular.

In her hand was the note of introduction she had brought from Mrs. Seth Morgan; evidently both its services and those of Roderick Norton might be dispensed with in the matter of her being presented.

“Of course,” Mrs. Engle was saying.  An arm about the girl’s slim waist, she drew her to a big leather couch.  “Marian never does things by halves, my dear; you know that, don’t you?  That’s a letter she gave you for me?  Well, she wrote me another, so I know all about you.  And, if you are willing to accept the relationship with out-of-the-world folks, we’re sort of cousins!”