“I’ve found it,” said Mrs. MacIntyre, banging the door. “Here it is.”
“Did you lose something?” asked Octavia, with sweetly polite non-interest.
“The little devil!” said Mrs. MacIntyre, driven to violence. “Ye’ve no forgotten him alretty?”
Between them they slew the centipede. Thus was he rewarded for his agency toward the recovery of things lost at the Hammersmiths’ ball.
It seems that Teddy, in due course, remembered the glove, and when he returned to the house at sunset made a secret but exhaustive search for it. Not until evening, upon the moonlit eastern gallery, did he find it. It was upon the hand that he had thought lost to him forever, and so he was moved to repeat certain nonsense that he had been commanded never, never to utter again. Teddy’s fences were down.
This time there was no ambition to stand in the way, and the wooing was as natural and successful as should be between ardent shepherd and gentle shepherdess.
The prairies changed to a garden. The Rancho de las Sombras became the Ranch of Light.
A few days later Octavia received a letter from Mr. Bannister, in reply to one she had written to him asking some questions about her business. A portion of the letter ran as follows:
“I am at a loss to account for your references to the sheep ranch. Two months after your departure to take
