preferable to a beggar," came in Peggy's clear, soft voice. 

 Barbara hesitated only a moment. 

 "Well, you must admit, Miss Gray, that it shows a shameful lack of character. How could any girl be happy with a man like that? And, after all, one must look out for one's own fate." 

 "Undoubtedly," replied Peggy, but many thoughts were dashing through her brain. 

 "Shall we turn back to the cottage?" she said, after an awkward silence. 

 "You certainly don't approve of Mr. Brewster's conduct?" Barbara did not like to be placed in the wrong, and felt that she must endeavor to justify herself. "He is the most reckless of spend-thrifts, we know, and he probably indulges in even less respectable excitement." 

 Peggy was not tall, but she carried her head at this moment as though she were in the habit of looking down on the world. 

 "Aren't you going a little too far, Miss Drew?" she asked placidly. 

 "It is not only New York that laughs at his Quixotic transactions," Barbara persisted. "Mr. Hampton, our guest from Chicago, says the stories are worse out there than they are in the east." 

 "It is a pity that Monty's illness should have made him so weak," said Peggy quietly, as they turned in through the great iron gates, and Barbara was not slow to see the point. 

 

 

 CHAPTER XVII 

 THE NEW TENDERFOOT 

 Brewster was comparatively well and strong when he returned to New York in March. His illness had interfered extensively with his plan of campaign and it was imperative that he redouble his efforts, notwithstanding the manifest dismay of his friends. His first act was to call upon Grant & Ripley, from whom he hoped to learn what Swearengen Jones thought of his methods. The lawyers had heard no complaint from Montana, and advised him to continue as he had begun, assuring him, as far as they could, that Jones would not prove unreasonable. 

 An exchange of telegrams just before 

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