“I wish we could, Min!” cried Jennie Stone.
“You shall come East to visit me later,” Ruth declared. “Won’t you, Min? We’ll all show you a good time there.”
“As though you hadn’t showed me the best time I ever had already,” choked the Yucca girl. “But I’ll come—after I git used to my new clo’es.”
“Have you and your father really made a bargain with Royal Phelps?” Miss Cullam asked, as much interested in the welfare of the suddenly enriched girl as her pupils.
“Yes, Ma’am. Pop’s going to have an office in the new company, too. And Mr. Phelps is goin’ to git backin’ from the East and buy up all the adjoinin’ claims that he can.”
“He’ll have all ours, in time,” said Helen. “That’s lots better than each of us trying to develop her little claim. Oh, that Phelps man is smart.”
“And what about Edith?” demanded the honest Ruth. “We’ve got to praise her, too.”
There was silence. Finally, Miss Cullam said dryly: “She seems to have no very enthusiastic friends in the audience, Miss Fielding.”
“Oh, well,” Ruth said, laughing, “we none of us like Edith.”
“How about liking her brother?” asked Jennie Stone, and she seemed to say it pointedly.