And so conscientiously did they perform their task as even occasionally to impede the business visitor to the ranch, and to cause some of the more practical neighbors seriously to doubt the young girl's commercial wisdom.

But she was firm.

Whether she thought her parents a necessity of respectable domesticity, or whether she regarded their presence in the light of a penitential atonement for some previous disregard of them, no one knew.

Public opinion inclined to the latter.
The black line of ridge faded out with her abstraction, and she turned from the window and lit the lamp on her desk.

The yellow light illuminated her face and figure.