she was so pretty I was scared. The fact is, pretty ain't just the word. She was more than that—she was beautiful.

Her dress was some sort of soft green silk, I reckon, cut low, and her neck was high and white, and her hair was done up high behind and tied up somehow, and her chin was held up high. She had some color in her face—honest color—and her eyes was big and bright. Her arms was bare up above where her gloves come to. She didn't have on very many rings—though, Lord! if she wanted them she could of had a bushel. She didn't have on much jewelry nowhere; but I want to tell you everybody in that room looked at her all they dared.

I looked at her and so did her pa. I don't know as you could say we both was proud—that ain't the right word for it. We was both scared. It didn't seem possible she could be ours. It didn't seem possible that us two old cowmen had raised her that way out on the range and that she had changed so soon. She must of had it in her—her ma, I reckon.

There was a table not very far from ours, just across the first window, where there was a old man and a old woman and a young man. They seen us all right. I seen the young man looking at Bonnie Bell two or three times, always looking down when he seen I noticed. He was a good-looking young man and dressed well, I suppose, for all the men was dressed alike. His necktie was tied kind of mussy and careless, like Old Man Wright's, and he didn't have to keep pushing at his shirt. Did Bonnie Bell notice him? Maybe she did—you can't tell about womenfolks; their eyes is set on like a antelope's and they can see behind theirself.

"That's Old Man Wisner," says Henderson, the hotel manager, quiet, to us, leaning over and pretending like he was fixing our flowers some more. "Mrs. Wisner and young Mr. James Wisner are with him. You know, he is one of the richest men here in Chicago—packing and banking, and all that sort of thing. They are among our best people. They live up in Millionaire Row."

"Yes, I know," says Bonnie Bell.

From where I set I could see them Wisners over at the other table. The old man was big, with gray whiskers and gray hair, rather coarse. He had big eyebrows and his eyes was kind of cross-looking, like his stomach wasn't right. He was a portly sort of man—you've seen that kind. Some is bankers and some packers and some brewers; they all look alike, no matter what they are. They can't ride or walk.

This old party he didn't seem to be paying much attention to his wife, and I don't know as I blame him. She may have had some looks once, but not recent. They wasn't happy.

After a while the folks at that table got up and went on out before we was done with our dinner, which was going strong at the end of a couple of hours—there wasn't anything in the whole wide world we didn't have to eat except ham shank and greens. At that, we had a right good time.

By and by it got to be maybe eleven o'clock, and Bonnie Bell turns down her long white gloves, which she had tucked the hands of them back into the wrists.

"Shall I call your car, Mr. Wright?" ast the manager, Mr. Henderson.

"I don't know," says Old Man Wright. "Have we got a car, sis?"

"Yes, papa," says she—she mostly said "papa" when folks was round; don't overlook it that Old Man Smith turned out girls with real class. She didn't talk like her pa and me neither.

"Yes, papa," says she now. "I was going to surprise you about our car; it's been on hand for a week. I employed a driver and told him to be ready for us about now." You see all our things had gone out to the new house.

We all three of us helped Bonnie Bell on with her coat. She picked up her muff and we all went out. I don't think any man in the place that had brass buttons forgot that Christmas Eve.

The tall man in front at the door, like a drum major in a band, he knew us well enough by now; he opens the door for us and we stand there, looking out.

I said it was cold in Chicago and it was shore cold that night. It was snowing—snow coming in off the lake slantwise, like a blizzard on the plains. You couldn't hardly see across the walk. Out beyond the awning, which covered the sidewalk, we could see our new car—a long, shiny one with lights inside and lamps all over it, red, white and blue, or maybe green. There was a couple of men on the front seat outside—I don't know when the kid had hired them. They was both wrapped up in big fur overcoats, which they certainly did need that night, since they couldn't ride in the e-limousine, like us.

Bonnie Bell walks across the sidewalk now, under the awning, with her muff up against her face, bending over against the storm. She looks up, after she has said good-by to Mr. Henderson, who run out with us, laughing and saying "Merry Christmas!"—she just looks up at the man on the seat, and says she: "Home, James!"

I reckon the man must of been new that she had hired. He looks round at first, as if he was trying to read our brand. Then all at once, sudden, he jumps down offen the seat, touches his cap and opens the door.

We all got in and said good-by to the hotel where we'd been living so long. The chauffore touches his hat again, shuts the door and climbs back in his seat. He turned that long car round in one motion in the street. The next minute we was out on the avenue, away from the hotel, and right in the middle of that row of lights several miles long, where the bullyvard is at, along the lake there. He turns her north on the bullyvard, without a skip or a bobble, and she runs smooth as grease. I seen Bonnie Bell was certainly a good judge of a car, like she was of a horse or anything else.

"Daughter," says Old Man Wright to her after a time—and he didn't usual call her that—"you're a wonder to your dad tonight! Where did you get it? Where did you learn it?"

She looks up at him quick from her muff, plumb serious, and just put out her hand on his, in its white glove.

We moved right along up the avenue, along a little crooked street or so, round a corner and over the bridge; and then we come out where the lights was in a long row again, and we could hear the roar of the lake right close to the road.

"Where are you taking us, kid?" says I after a while, seeing that her pa wasn't going to say nothing, nohow.

She only smiled.

"Wait, Curly; you'll see the new ranch house before so very long."

By and by we was right at the lower end of that long row of big houses that cost so much money, where the best people live—Millionaire Row, they called it then.

I knew where we was. After a while we come right to the place where Bonnie Bell and me once had set on our horses and looked out at a new house that wasn't finished, but was just beginning. It was done now—all complete, from top to bottom, right where the foundations had been last spring! I could see where the walks was laid out and some trees had been planted that fall—big ones, as though they had always growed there. Here and there was statues, women mostly and looking cold that night.

On behind you could see the line of the low buildings, like the outlying barns of the home ranch on the Yellow Bull; but this house stood there just inside, where the lake come in rolling and roaring, and fronted right on this avenue, where our best people lived. It was stone, three stories or more, maybe, with a place for buckboards to drive under and a stone porch over the front door, and a walk and steps. And it was all lit up from top to bottom; all the windows was bright.

We wasn't cold or wet or tired, us three, but we wasn't feeling good—not one of us. Now when we stopped there for some reason and looked at all them red lights shining, I sort of felt a wish that I could see a light shining in some home ranch once more, like I had so often out on the Yellow Bull. I set there looking at that place, all lit up for somebody, all waiting for somebody; and for a time I forgot where I was—forgot even that the car had stopped.

I turns round;