"Yes, he is," was the answer. "I've noticed it in a dozen little ways. It's always his wishes and his tastes that have to be consulted, never Lucy's. Yet aside from that trait he is a thoroughly fine man, and because she respects him and looks up to him and is such a sweet yielding little creature, he'll come in time to be the centre of her universe, and she'll revolve around him like a loyal little planet. But a girl of a different temperament wouldn't. If she were impetuous and highstrung like you for instance," she added with a smile at Lloyd, "she would see the injustice of it and resent it so bitterly that there would be continual friction and jar. With your temperament you couldn't live peaceably with anybody like that."
"I know I couldn't," admitted Lloyd frankly, "especially if he showed any jealousy. Mistah Jameson is jealous of every friend Lucy evah had at the Post. He doesn't like it a bit when she refers to the good times she used to have with the boys there, even when they were just ordinary friends. Half a dozen times I've seen the tears come to her eyes at some inconsiderate thing he'd say, and I'd think if I were Lucy I couldn't sit there and take it like a martyr. I'd have to jump up and shake him till his teeth rattled."
"What a cat and dog time you would have," laughed Mrs. Sherman. "Worse than little Mary Ware's nightmare that she had after Eugenia's wedding."
"By the way," exclaimed Mr. Sherman, slapping his pockets to find a letter he had placed in one of them, "I knew there was something I intended to tell you. Jack Ware is on his way here now."
Then in answer to the surprise and the questions that greeted his announcement he explained, "I suggested making him assistant manager of the mines and the Company wants to have a look at him, and put him through a sort of examination. He's so young they rather doubt my judgment in the matter. But they'll find out when they see him. We telegraphed him to come, and he left Arizona several days ago. He'll be here only a day and night probably."
Lloyd left her seat on the step and took a chair beside her father, sitting straight and alert in her interest. It was hard to realize that Jack Ware was grown. He was only fourteen when she had known him on the desert. "Oh, will you evah forget," she laughed, "the way he looked when we surprised him at the washtub, all tied up in an apron, helping Joyce with the family washing?"
"His readiness to pitch in to whatever is to be done is his chief characteristic," was the answer. "That is what makes him so valuable at the mines. Patient and reliable and strong, he is one of the finest young fellows of my acquaintance. He'll be one of the big men of the West some day, for young as he is, he is into everything that makes for the welfare and development of the territory he lives in."
All the rest of the evening was spent in recalling that visit to Ware's Wigwam, and when Lloyd went up to bed, although Leland Harcourt's name had not been mentioned, she felt that her doubts and unspoken questions about him had been answered. She must not listen any more to that little name, that caressing little name that left such a thrill in its wake.
"Wise old Hildgardmar," said Mrs. Sherman in a playful tone after Lloyd had left them. "I don't suppose when you sent for Jack that it entered your head you were giving her the very safeguard of contrast that I hoped she might have, but you will be doing it all the same."