Helen remained silent for several minutes. She tried to look sad. Within, however, she was furiously angry. But this was not the hour for her to triumph.
Flossie had been giggling for a few moments. Now she asked her cousin, saucily:
"I say! Where did you pick up that calico dress, Helen?"
"This?" returned the visitor, looking down at the rather ugly print. "It"s a gingham. Bought it ready-made in Elberon. Do you like it?"
"I love it!" giggled Flossie. "And it"s made in quite a new style, too."
"Do you think so? Why, I reckoned it was old," said Helen, smoothly. "But I"m glad to hear it"s so fitten to wear. For, you see, I ain"t got many clo"es."
"Don"t you have dressmakers out there in Montana?" asked Hortense, eyeing the print garment as though it was something entirely foreign.
"I reckon. But we folks on the range don"t get much chance at "em.
Dressmakers is as scurce around Sunset Ranch as killyloo birds. Unless ye mought call Injun squaws dressmakers."
"What are killyloo birds?" demanded Flossie, hearing something new.
"Well now! don"t you have them here?" asked Helen, smiling broadly.
"Never heard of them. And I"ve been to Bronx Park and seen all the birds in the flying cage," said Flossie. "Our Nature teacher takes us out there frequently. It"s a dreadful bore."
"Well, I didn"t know but you might have "em East here," observed Helen, pushing along the time-worn cowboy joke. "I said they was scurce around the ranch; and they be. I never saw one."
"Really!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hortense. "What are killyloo birds good for?"
"Why, near as I ever heard," replied Helen, chuckling, "they are mostly used for making folks ask questions."
"I declare!" snapped Belle. "She is laughing at you, girls. You"re very dense, I"m sure, Hortense."
"Say! that"s a good one!" laughed Flossie. But Hortense muttered:
"Vulgar little thing!"
Helen smiled tranquilly upon them. Nothing they said to her could shake her calm. And once in a while--as in the case above--she "got back" at them. She kept consistently to her rude way of speaking; but she used the tableware with little awkwardness, and Belle said to Hortense:
"At least somebody"s tried to teach her a few things. She is no sword-swallower."
"I suppose Aunt Mary had some refinement," returned Hortense, languidly.
Helen"s ears were preternaturally sharp. She heard everything. But she had such good command of her features that she showed no emotion at these side remarks.
After luncheon the three sisters separated for their usual afternoon amus.e.m.e.nts. Neither of them gave a thought to Helen"s loneliness. They did not ask her what she was going to do, or suggest anything to her save that, an hour later, when Belle saw her cousin preparing to leave the house in the same dress she had worn at luncheon, she cried:
"Oh, Helen, _do_ go out and come in by the lower door; will you? The bas.e.m.e.nt door, you know."
"Sure!" replied Helen, cheerfully. "Saves the servants work, I suppose, answering the bell."
But she knew as well as Belle why the request was made. Belle was ashamed to have her appear to be one of the family. If she went in and out by the servants" door it would not look so bad.
Helen walked over to the avenue and looked at the frocks in the store windows. By their richness she saw that in this neighborhood, at least, to refit in a style which would please her cousins would cost quite a sum of money.
"I won"t do it!" she told herself, stubbornly. "If they want me to look well enough to go in and out of the front door, let them suggest buying something for me."
She went back to the Starkweather mansion in good season; but she entered, as she had been told, by the area door. One of the maids let her in and tossed her head when she saw what an out-of-date appearance this poor relation of her master made.
"Sure," this girl said to the cook, "if I didn"t dress better nor _her_ when I went out, I"d wait till afther dark, so I would!"
Helen heard this, too. But she was a girl who could stick to her purpose.
Criticism should not move her, she determined; she would continue to play her part.
"Mr. Starkweather is in the den, Miss," said the housekeeper, meeting Helen on the stairs. "He has asked for you."
Mrs. Olstrom was a very grim person, indeed. If she had shown the girl from the ranch some little kindliness the night before, she now hid it all very successfully.
Helen returned to the lower floor and sought that room in which she had had her first interview with her relatives. Mr. Starkweather was alone. He looked more than a little disturbed; and of the two he was the more confused.
"Ahem! I feel that we must have a serious talk together, Helen," he said, in his pompous manner. "It--it will be quite necessary--ahem!"
"Sure!" returned the girl. "Glad to. I"ve got some serious things to ask you, too, sir."
"Eh? Eh?" exclaimed the gentleman, worried at once.
"You fire ahead, sir," said Helen, sitting down and crossing one knee over the other in a boyish fashion. "My questions will wait."
"I--ahem!--I wish to know who suggested your coming here to New York?"
"My father," replied Helen, simply and truthfully.
"Your father?" The reply evidently both surprised and discomposed Mr.
Starkweather. "I do not understand. Your--your father is dead----"
"Yes, sir. It was just before he died."
"And he told you to come here to--to _us_?"
"Yes, sir."
"But why?" demanded the gentleman with some warmth.
"Dad said as how you folks lived nice, and knew all about refinement and eddication and all that. He wanted me to have a better chance than what I could get on the ranch."
Mr. Starkweather glared at her in amazement. He was not at all a kind-hearted man; but he was very cowardly. He had feared her answer would be quite different from this, and now took courage.
"Do you mean to say that merely this expressed wish that you might live at--ahem!--at my expense, and as my daughters live, brought you here to New York?"
"That begun it, Uncle," said Helen, coolly.
"Preposterous! What could Prince Morrell be thinking of? Why should I support you, Miss?"