The unavoidable exigencies of a choir practice compelled Mr. Wynkoop to
retire early, nor was it yet late when the more intimate family circle
also dissolved, and the two girls discovered themselves alone. Naida
drew down the shades and lit the lamp. Miss Spencer slowly divested
herself of her outer dress, replacing it with a light wrapper, encased
her feet snugly in comfortable slippers, and proceeded to let down her
flossy hair in gleaming waves across her shoulders. Naida's dark eyes
bespoke plainly her admiration, and Miss Spencer shook back her hair
somewhat coquettishly.
"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."