“Do you think I look nice?” she questioned, smilingly.

“You bet I do.  Your hair is just beautiful, Miss Spencer.”

The other permitted the soft strands to slip slowly between her white fingers.  “You should never say ‘you bet,’ Naida.  Such language is not at all lady-like.  I am going to call you Naida, and you must call me Phoebe.  People use their given names almost entirely out here in the West, don’t they?”

“I never have had much training in being a lady,” the young girl explained, reddening, “but I can learn.  Yes, I reckon they do mostly use the first names out here.”

“Please don’t say ‘I reckon,’ either; it has such a vulgar sound.  What is his given name?”

“Whose?”

“Why, I was thinking of Mr. Wynkoop.”

“Howard; I saw it written in some books he loaned me.  But the people here never address him in that way.”

“No, I suppose not, only I thought I should like to know what it was.”

There was a considerable pause; then the speaker asked, calmly, “Is he married?”

“Mr. Wynkoop?  Why, of course not; he does n’t care for women in that way at all.”

Miss Spencer bound her hair carefully with a bright ribbon.  “Maybe he might, though, some time.  All men do.”

She sat down in the low rocker, her feet comfortably crossed.  “Do you know, Naida dear, it is simply wonderful to me just to remember what you have been through, and it was so beautifully romantic—­everybody killed except you and that man, and then he saved your life.  It’s such a pity he was so miserable a creature.”

“He was n’t!” Naida exclaimed, in sudden, indignant passion.  “He was perfectly splendid.”

“Aunt Lydia did n’t think so.  She wrote he was a common gambler,—­a low, rough man.”

“Well, he did gamble; nearly everybody does out here.  And sometimes I suppose he had to fight, but he wasn’t truly bad.”

Miss Spencer’s eyes evinced a growing interest.

“Was he real nice-looking?” she asked.

Naida’s voice faltered.  “Ye—­es,” she said.  “I thought so.  He—­he looked like he was a man.”

“How old are you, Naida?”

“Nearly eighteen.”

Miss Spencer leaned impulsively forward, and clasped the other’s hands, her whole soul responding to this suggestion of a possible romance, a vision of blighted hearts.  “Why, it is perfectly delightful,” she exclaimed.  “I had no idea it was so serious, and really I don’t in the least blame you.  You love him, don’t you, Naida?”

The girl flashed a shy look into the beaming, inquisitive face.  “I don’t know,” she confessed, soberly.  “I have not even seen him for such a long time; but—­but, I guess, he is more to me than any one else—­”

“Not seen him?  Do you mean to say Mr. Hampton is not here in Glencaid?  Why, I am so sorry; I was hoping to meet him.”

“He went away the same night I came here to live.”