"Knibbs writes man-verse. I shouldn't have imagined that it
would appeal to a young lady."
"But it does, though," she replied; "at least to me. There's a
swing to it and a freedom that 'gets me in the eye.'"
Again she laughed, and when this girl laughed, harder-headed
and much older men than Mr. L. Bridge felt strange
emotions move within their breasts.
For a week Barbara had seen a great deal of the new
bookkeeper. Aside from her father he was the only man of
culture and refinement of which the rancho could boast, or, as
the rancho would have put it, be ashamed of.
She had often sought the veranda of the little office and
lured the new bookkeeper from his work, and on several
occasions had had him at the ranchhouse. Not only was he an
interesting talker; but there was an element of mystery about
him which appealed to the girl's sense of romance.
She knew that he was a gentleman born and reared, and she
often found herself wondering what tragic train of circumstances
had set him adrift among the flotsam of humanity's
wreckage. Too, the same persistent conviction that she had
known him somewhere in the past that possessed her father
clung to her mind; but she could not place him.
"I overheard your dissertation on HERE AND THERE," said the
girl.
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