The Helpers

al attempt to make a passageway for him without rising, the two young women and the elderly man stood up and folded their opera chairs. Being driven to think pointedl

ng herself after the manner of ruffled birds and disturbed womankind. "I'm in love with your mountains, and

woman in the modest t

, but what can you expect when every train from the East brings us a new lot of people to civilize? When you are tempted to groan over our shor

s! What an

derfeet' before the 'Century Dictionary' set us r

plumes bent her eyebro

ous. Will you be good enough to te

pop

d it with a little hesitancy, picking his way among the words as one might handle broken glass, or the edged tools of an unfamiliar trade. H

s: I'll give you the ponies and the phaeton if I don't convince you that the absent-minded gentleman on our left

ouldn'

o learn about your kind, yet. If you stay out here six months or a year,

Constance. If I did

odest, and unassuming, and dutiful, and brimful of fads"-she checked

g and rumbling on the stage died away what time the musicians were clambering back to their plac

ance to prove it, Conni

e sure he is a gentleman who alw

kes you

's what they call it in a woman, though I thi

e gone back to the theatre if he had known what else to do with himself. Indeed, he was minded not to go back, but a turn in the open air made him think better

ened, and the nod and the smile went near to the better part of him. He kept his seat during the next intermission, and ventured a civil commonplace about the opera. The young woman repli

e hazarded on the strength of a remark whi

a few

it? Every one

ecorously acquiescent a

d say yes; but for once in a way,

ially new-comers, liked Denver; enthusiastically

point of view. To be brutally frank about it, I came here-like some few hundreds of others, I presume-to make m

werved from her intenti

s' and the 'Little Pittsburg,' notwithstanding Creede and Cripple Creek. And yet it w

self-contained young woman whose serenity was apparently undisturbed by any notions of conventionality, said, "Than a city of the fifth c

, "if it is merely a question of getting enough to eat and drink I suppose that can be answer

t of view by the many little outward signs of prosperity which

ything at all about it,"

tudes in it. "I dare say I don't-not in any practical way; though I do go about among our poor peop

the uncharity had a

f the struggle for existence. "I think my own case is a fair example of what comes of chasing ambitious phantoms. I gave

mselves, and she was sorry for t

of disgust, but there was

m still here and beginning to wish very heartily that

aside a hand's-breadth by the young woman's curiosity, fell between these two who knew not so much as each other's names, and who assumed

n the foyer, the young woman had a curious little thrill of regret; a twinge of remorse born of the recollecti

me, but she made it a point of conscience to go to

haken! How did you dare to talk with that young m

e edge of the bed and la

ruffle your feathers so beautifully. Don't you see that I talked to him jus

id. I suppose he wil

allest appreciable lapse of time. "Indeed, he will not.

Van Vette