But there was a sort of breezy familiarity about her very difficult to check.  On her second day at the ranch she suddenly came behind Jerry Tressady seated on the piano bench and slipped a sheet of music before him.

“Won’t you just run over that last chorus for me, Mr. Tress’dy?” asked Belle.  “I have to sing that at a party Thursday night and I can’t seem to get it.”

No maid between Washington Square and the Bronx Zoo would have asked this favor.  Yes, but Rising Water Ranch was not within those limits, nor within several thousand miles of them; so Jerry played the last chorus firmly, swiftly, without comment, and Belle gratefully withdrew.  The Porters, unseen witnesses of this scene, on the porch, thought this very amusing; but only a day later Mrs. Porter herself was discovered in the act of buttoning the long line of buttons that went down the back of one of Belle’s immaculate white gowns.

“Well, what could I do?  She suddenly backed up before me,” Mrs. Porter said in self-defence.  “Could I tell her to let Hong button her?”

After dinner on the same day Peter Porter cleared a space before him on the table and proceeded to a demonstration involving a fork, a wedding ring, and a piece of string.  While the quartet, laughing, were absorbed in the mysterious swinging of the suspended ring, Belle, putting away her clean silver, suddenly joined the group.

“I know a better one than that,” said she, putting a glass of water before Mrs. Tressady.  “Here—­take your ring again.  Now wait—­I’ll pull out one of your hairs for you.  Now swing it over the water inside the glass.  It’ll tell your age.”

Entirely absorbed in the experiment, her fresh young face close to theirs, her arms crossed as she knelt by the table, she had eyes only for the ring.

“We won’t keep you from your dishes, Belle,” said Molly.

“Oh, I’m all through,” said Belle, cheerfully.  “There!” For the ring was beginning to strike the glass with delicate, even strokes—­ thirty.

“Now do it again,” cried Belle, delightedly, “and it’ll tell your married life!”

Again the ring struck the glass—­eight.

“Well, that’s very marvellous,” said Molly, in genuine surprise; but when Belle had gone back to her pantry, Mrs. Tressady rose, with a little sigh, and followed her.

“Call her down?” asked Jerry, an hour later.

“Well, no,” the lady admitted, smiling.  “No!  She was putting away Timmy’s bibs, and she told me that he had seemed a little upset to-night, she thought; so she gave him just barley gruel and the white of an egg for supper, and some rhubarb water before he went to bed.  And what could I say?  But I will, though!”