Her most recent and
narrow escape was from a velvet-tongued person of half her years
who turned out to be a convict on parole. She had her hand-bag
packed for the elopement when I confronted her with this unpleasant
fact. When she came to she was bitter instead of grateful, and
went about for weeks presenting a spectacle of blighted affections
which was too much for the most self-approving conscience. So it
ended with my packing her off to New York, where I wrote to her
frequently and kindly, urging her not to mind me but to stay as
long as she liked.
Meanwhile I came up to the ranch for a long holiday with Bess and
the baby, a holiday which had already stretched itself out to
Thanksgiving, and threatened to last until Christmas. People wrote
alluringly from town, but what had town to offer compared with a
saddle-horse to yourself, and a litter of collie pups to play with,
and a baby just learning to walk? I even began to consider
ranching as a career, and to picture myself striding over my broad
acres in top-boots and corduroys.
As to Aunt Jane, my state of mind was fatuously calm. She was
staying with cousins, who live in a suburb and are frightfully
respectable. I was sure they numbered no convicts among their
acquaintance, or indeed any one from whom Aunt Jane was likely to
require rescuing. And if it came to a retired missionary I was
perfectly willing.
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