The Golden Woman

Joan had risen from her seat. Her face was alight with a hope that had not been there for many days. The man's words had taken hold of her. Her troubled mind could not withstand them. He had inspired her with a feeling of security she had not known for weeks. Her tears were no longer tears of despair. They were tears of thankfulness and hope. But when she spoke her words seemed utterly bald and meaningless to express the wave of gratitude that flooded her heart.

"I will; I will," she cried with glistening eyes. "Oh, Padre!" she went on, with happy impulse, "you don't know what you've done for me--you don't know----"

"Then, child, do something for me." The man was smiling gravely down into the bright, upturned face. "You must not live alone down there at the farm. It is not good in a child so young as you. Get some relative to come and share your home with you."

"But I have no one--except my Aunt Mercy."

"Ah!"

"You see she is my only relative. But--but I think she would come if I asked her."

"Then ask her."

* * * * * The Padre was sitting in the chair that Joan had occupied. He too was bending over the stove with his hands outstretched to the warming blaze. Perhaps he too was feeling the nip of the mountain air. Feeling it more than usual to-night. Buck was sitting on the edge of the table close by. He had just returned from taking Joan back to the farm.

The young man's journey home had been made in a condition of mental exhilaration which left him quite unconscious of all time and distance. The change wrought in Joan had been magical, and Cæsar, for once in his life, felt the sharp spur of impatience in the man's eager desire to reach his friend and speak something of the gratitude he felt.

But habit was strong upon Buck, and his gratitude found no outlet in words when the moment came. Far from it. On his arrival he found the Padre sitting at their fireside without even the most ordinary welcome on his lips. A matter so unusual that it found Buck dumb, waiting for the lead to come, as he knew it inevitably would, in the Padre's own good time.

It took longer than he expected, however, and it was not until he had prepared their frugal supper that the elder man stirred from his moody contemplation of the fire.

He looked up, and a smile struggled painfully into his eyes.

"Hungry, Buck?" he inquired.

"So!"

"Ah! then sit right down here, boy, an' light your pipe. There's things I want to say--first."