"If it isn't Lilian!" cried Stella, rushing toward the child with wide-open arms and folding her within them.
"I wouldn't have known you, honey," said Stella. "What have you boys been doing to her? She's improved so much. Where did you get all these clothes, and who takes care of her?"
"Isn't she a little beauty?" asked Ted Strong proudly, patting the head of the blushing little girl.
"But how did you do it?" persisted Stella.
"Oh, I went over and saw Mrs. Bingham, the major's wife, at the fort, and asked her to come and advise us what to do. She came and was delighted with Lilian, and promised to oversee her wardrobe. She was going down to Omaha, and when she returned she had a trunk full of things for Lil. She also brought a colored woman to look after her, and Mirandy has proved a blessing and a treasure."
"But the clothes didn't make themselves."
"No, and none of us made them, either, although Bud said he could sew, and insisted upon trying. He cut up several yards of cloth, and at the end of the week, when we saw the product of his needle, he narrowly escaped lynching. If Lilian had not interceded for Uncle Bud, of whom she is very fond, I'm afraid we'd have no little Buddy now. No, we sent down to Omaha for a dressmaker and boarded her in town until she had Lil all fixed up, as becomes the heiress of the La Garita Mines."
"Whose idea is this way of making the things?" demanded Stella, who was looking Lilian over with critical eyes.
"Oh, we all had a finger in it. I sent away for a lot of fashion magazines and things of that sort, and we sat up nights as a board of strategy and picked out the sort of thing we wanted, and I reckon there isn't a better-dressed kid in the State."
"I agree with you. Well, Ted Strong, you're a constant wonder to me. Where in the world did you learn to do all the things you do so well?"