“Oh, I had a nice enough time in New York,” said Patricia, lazily, “but it just Wears you out to live there; and what do you get out of it?  Now, here—­well, one’s equal to the situation here!”

“And then some,” Paul said; and the brother and sister laughed at his tone.

“But, honestly,” said Miss Chisholm, “you take a little place like Kirkwood, and you don’t need a Socialist party.  We all eat the same; we all dress about the same; and certainly, if any one works hard here, it’s Alan, and not the mere hands.  Why, last Christmas there wasn’t a person here who didn’t have a present—­even Willy Chow Tong!  Every one had all the turkey he could eat; every one a fire, and a warm bed, and a lighted house.  Mrs. Tolley gets only fifty dollars a month, and Monk White gets fifty—­doesn’t he, Alan?  But money doesn’t make much difference here.  You know how the boys adore Monk for his voice; and as for Mrs. Tolley, she’s queen of the place!  Now, how much of that’s true of New York!”

“Oh, well, put it that way—­” Paul said, in the tone of an offended child.

“Apropos of Mrs. Tolley’s being queen of the place,” said Alan to his sister, “it seems she’s rubbing it into poor little Mollie Peavy.  Len brought Mollie and the baby down from the ranch a week ago, and nobody’s been near ’em.”

“Who said so?” flashed Miss Chisholm, reddening.

“Why, I saw Len to-night, sort of lurking round the power-house, and he told me he had ’em in that little cottage, across the creek, where the lumbermen used to live.  Said Mollie was in agony because nobody came near her.”

“Oh, that makes me furious!” said Patricia, passionately.  “I’ll see about it to-morrow.  Nobody went near her?  The poor little thing!”

“Who are they?” said Paul.

“Why, she’s a little blonde, sickly-looking thing of sixteen,” explained Miss Chisholm, “and Len’s a lumberman.  They have a little blue-nosed, sickly baby; it was born about six weeks ago, at her father’s ranch, above here.  She was—­she had no mother, the poor child—­”

“And in fact, my sister escorted the benefit of clergy to them about two months ago,” said Alan, “and the ladies of the Company House are very haughty about it.”

“They won’t be long,” predicted Miss Chisholm, confidently.  “The idea!  I can forgive Mrs. Hopps, because she’s only a kid herself; but Mrs. Tolley ought to have been big enough!  However!”

“This place honestly can’t spare you for ten minutes, Pat,” her brother said.

“Well, honestly,” she was beginning seriously, when she saw he was laughing at her, and broke off, with a shamefaced, laughing look for Paul.  Then she announced that she was going down to the power-house, and, packing her thin white skirts about her, she started off, and they followed.

Paul was not accustomed to seeing a lady in the power-house, and thought that her enthusiasm was rather nice to watch.  She flitted about the great barnlike structure like a contented child, insisted upon displaying the trim stock-room to Paul, demanded a demonstration of the switchboard, spread her pretty hands over the whirling water that showed under the glass of the water-wheels, and hung, fascinated, over the governors.