The new owner of the Padre's farm had quite recovered from the effects of her disastrous journey. Youth and a sound constitution, and the overwhelming ministrations of Mrs. Ransford had done all that was needed to restore her.
She was sitting in an old, much-repaired rocking-chair, in what was obviously the farm's "best" bedroom. Her trunks, faithfully recovered from the wreck of the cart by the only too willing Buck, stood open on the floor amidst a chaotic setting of their contents, while the old farm-wife herself stood over them, much in the attitude of a faithful and determined watch-dog.
The girl looked on indifferent to the confusion and to the damage being perpetrated before her very eyes. She was lost in thoughts of her own which had nothing to do with such fripperies as lawns, and silks, and suèdes, or any other such feminine excitements. She was struggling with recollection, and endeavoring to conjure it. There was a blank in her life, a blank of some hours, which, try as she would, she could not fill in. It was a blank, as far as she could make out, which terminated in her arrival at the farm borne in the arms of some strange man.
Well might such a thought shut out considerations like the almost certain destruction of a mere wardrobe at the hands of her ignorant but well-meaning helper. It would have been exciting, too, but for her memory of the latter stages of her journey. They were still painful. There was still uncertainty as to what had happened to the teamster and the horses.
At last, however, she abandoned further attempt to solve the riddle unaided, and decided to question her housekeeper.
"Was it the same man who brought those trunks--I mean the same man who--brought me here?" she demanded sharply.
"It surely was," replied Mrs. Ransford, desisting for a moment from her efforts to bestow a pile of dainty shoes into a night-dress case of elaborate drawn thread work. "An' a nice mess he's got things in. Jest look at 'em all tossed about, same as you might toss slap-jacks, as the sayin' is. It's a mercy of heaven, an' no thanks to him, you've got a rag fit to wear. It surely ain't fer me to say it, but it's real lucky I'm here to put things right for you. Drat them shoes! I don't guess I'll ever git 'em all into this bag, miss--ma'm--I mean miss, mum."
Something of the tragedy of her wardrobe became evident to the girl and she went to the rescue.
"I'm sorry, but they don't go in there," she said, feeling that an apology was due for her interference in such well-intended efforts. "That's--you see, that's my sleeping-suit case," she added gently.