"Probably the poor thing won't have the price of a room," observed Belle, looking again at the telegram.

"What is that in your hand, child?" demanded Mr. Starkweather, suddenly seeing the yellow slip of paper.

"A dispatch, Pa," said Flossie, s.n.a.t.c.hing it out of Belle's hand.

"A telegram?"

"And you'd never guess from whom," cried the youngest girl.

"I--I----Let me see it," said her father, with some abruptness. "No bad news, I hope?"

"Well, I don't call it _good_ news," said the oldest girl, with a sniff.

Mr. Starkweather read it aloud:

"Coming on Transcontinental. Arrive Grand Central Terminal 9 P.M. the third.

"Helen Morrell."

"Now! What do you think of that, Pa?" demanded Flossie.

"'Helen Morrell,'" repeated Mr. Starkweather, and a person more observant than any of his daughters might have seen that his lips had grown suddenly gray. He dropped into his chair rather heavily. "Your cousin, girls."

"Fol-de-rol!" exclaimed Belle. "I don't see why she should claim relationship."

"Send her to a hotel, Pa," said Flossie.

"I'm sure _I_ do not wish to be bothered by a common ranch girl. Why! she was born and brought up out in the wilds; wasn't she?" demanded Hortense.

"Her father and mother went West before this girl was born--yes," murmured Mr. Starkweather.

He was strangely agitated by the message. But the girls did not notice this. They were not likely to notice anything but their own disturbance over the coming of "that ranch girl."

"Why, Pa, we can't have her here!" cried Belle.

"Of course we can't, Pa," agreed Hortense.

"I'm sure _I_ don't want the common little thing around," added Flossie, who, as has been said, was quite two years Helen's junior.

"We couldn't introduce her to our friends," declared Belle.

"What a _fright_ she'll be!" wailed Hortense.

"She'll wear a sombrero and a split riding skirt, I suppose," scoffed Flossie, who madly desired a slit skirt, herself.

"Of course she'll be a perfect dowdy," Belle observed.

"And be loud and wear heavy boots, and stamp through the house," sighed Hortense. "We just _can't_ have her, Pa."

"Why, I wouldn't let any of the girls of _our_ set see her for the world,"

cried Flossie.

Their father finally spoke. He had recovered from his secret emotion, but he was still mopping the perspiration from his bald brow.

"I don't really see how I can prevent her coming," he said, rather weakly.

"What nonsense, Pa!"

"Of course you can!"

"Telegraph her not to come."

"But she is already aboard the train," objected Mr. Starkweather, gloomily.

"Then, I tell you," snapped Flossie, who was the most unkind of the girls.

"Don't telegraph her at all. Don't answer her message. Don't send to the station to meet her. Maybe she won't be too dense to take _that_ hint."

"Pooh! these wild and woolly Western girls!" grumbled Hortense. "I don't believe she'll know enough to stay away."

"We can try it," persisted Flossie.

"She ought to realize that we're not dying to see her when we don't come to the train," said Belle.

"I--don't--know," mused their father.

"Now, Pa!" cried Flossie. "You know very well you don't want that girl here."

"No," he admitted. "But--Ahem!--we have certain duties----"

"Bother duties!" said Hortense.

"Ahem! She is your mother's sister's child," spoke Mr. Starkweather, heavily. "She is a young and unprotected female----"

"Seems to me," said Belle, crossly, "the relationship is far enough removed for us to ignore it. Mother's sister, Aunt Mary, is dead."

"True--true. Ahem!" said her father.

"And isn't it true that this man, Morrell, whom she married, left New York under a cloud?"

"O--oh!" cried Hortense. "So he did."

"What did he do?" Flossie asked, bluntly.

"Embezzled; didn't he, Pa?" asked Belle.

"That's enough!" cried Flossie, tossing her head. "We certainly don't want a convict's daughter in the house."

"Hush, Flossie!" said her father, with sudden sternness. "Prince Morrell was never a convict."