girl of fourteen she emerged apparently by a series of swift
transitions into a young lady at sixteen, giving promise of a beauty
which lay, not so much in her physical attractions, which were
generous, but in that easily discernible nobility of character which
indicates beauty of soul--that superlative beauty which entitles its
possessor to be alluded to as "sweet," rather than pretty or handsome.
At the dawn of womanhood she was a lovely little girl, kind,
affectionate, imaginative, distinctly virginal,

--a flower... born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

When Donna was nearly seventeen years old her mother died. It was the
consensus of opinion that heart trouble had something to do with it. In
fact, Mrs. Corblay had often complained of pains in her heart and was
subject to fainting spells; besides which, there was that in her eyes
which seemed to predicate a heartache of many years' standing. At any
rate, she fainted at the eating-house one day and they carried her
home. She passed away very quietly the same night, leaving an estate
which consisted of Donna, the two Indian servants, and a quantity of
coin in a teapot in the cupboard at the Hat Ranch which upon
investigation was found to total the stupendous sum of two hundred and
twenty-eight dollars and ninety-five cents.

There was no one except Donna to attend to the funeral arrangements,
and for eight hours following her mother's death she was too distracted
to think of anything but her great grief. Soft Wind prepared her
mistress for the grave after a well-meant but primitive fashion, while
Sam Singer squatted all morning in the sand in front of the compound
and smoked innumerable cigarettes. Presently he got up, went to his own